


Virtually Reality

by RRHood



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Bisexual Male Character, Blood and Gore, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Coercion, Depression, Eye Trauma, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Gun Violence, Homophobic Language, Infanticide, M/M, MMORPGs, Misgendering, Misogyny, Monsters, Multi, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, POV First Person, Present Tense, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Sexism, Sexual Content, Slut Shaming, Trans Character, Transphobia, Unintentional Racism, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 82,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5928775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RRHood/pseuds/RRHood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Heron - gamer handle 'Wingspan' - finds himself, along with his guild mates, locked in a virtual reality fantasy game as the quests take on a horrific twist, and escape means enduring trials that will break each and every one of them down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The bundle of letters hits the floor in a heap, letters skittering across the thin, ratted carpet. A bill. Another bill. Flyer, sans coupons – what good is that? Another bill. Apartment building newsletter.

Rejection letter.

It’s the only envelope that’s been opened – the application response was all I bothered rummaging through the red-flagged letters for. Four colleges, I’d heard back from, now. Not a single one has wanted my money, my attendance, or my eternal gratitude.

“Dear Mr. Alexander Heron, we are grateful for your interest…” I mutter, “…we regret to inform you that you’re not good enough to meet our high-ass standards, because we’re judging your work ethic on the stuff you did four years ago…”

As long as it’s been since I graduated high school, I would have thought they’d take personal growth into account. A twenty-two year old with a part-time job and apartment of his own is a hell of a lot different from an eighteen year old who writes out the lyrics to the entire song ‘Hotel California’ in place of an essay on the end-of-year exam.

I suppose the state of my life isn’t very conducive to proving my maturity. When I used to picture what having my own place would be like,  _this_ wasn’t it.

My apartment is a box. The kitchenette, I can only call such to make it sound quaint; a mini-fridge, small table loaded with my microwave and toaster oven (of which I can only have one plugged in at a time) and with dirty dishes stacked in the sink. Against one wall, I’ve got a couch – my improvised bed – and in the opposite corner, nestled by the window with a beckoning wink, my computer.

The virtual reality headset is always plugged in. My bills are probably through the roof because my behemoth of a desktop is constantly sapping power, but I can never bring myself to turn it off. At the end of a day like the one I just had, packed with short-tempered stay-at-home mothers and angry old folks paying in nickels,  _Beyond the Free Realm_ has become the most comforting constant in my life.

The craze began a month ago.

I’m not sure where it came from, exactly. A local developing team came out with it, they said – they brought in absolute geniuses, working for years on the technology I’d only ever dreamed about. The kind of technology people used in their science fiction stories to show how far off into the future it was. Virtual reality had been produced for  _‘Beyond the Free Realm’_ , the online multiplayer game that was destined to overtake every popular role-playing game in sales the moment it was released to the public.

My small town is only an experiment. We are, in essence, the beta-testers. Free copies had been issued to every household to sign up, as I’d done on a whim. They hadn’t asked me to give any information but my address – not my name, not a credit card number. If it was a scam, I figured it was pretty weak.

Then, against all expectations, I’d actually received a copy of the game. The headset, the install disk – it was all there, and it is  _amazing_ .

Locking the door behind me, I resist its call long enough to check my mini-fridge. The remainder of a lasagna, courtesy of my mother’s visit last week, and an open, now-flat soda look to be the best I’m going to get for the evening, unless I feel like cracking open my last beer. I grab the Tupperware container and shove it into the microwave, leaning over to double-check that it’s already been plugged in before setting the timer for ten minutes. I have no intentions of leaving it in there for that long, and while the tomato paste leaks and bubbles, I go over to the computer and jiggle the cursor until the black screen re-awakens.

I’ve been gaming so often and so obsessively that the monitor looks weird and too-flat, without the complex headset on. It’s more like a topless helmet, really, with a visor that covers the entire upper half of my face and a similar kind of set up around the mouth, to motion-capture the movement of lips and the sound of my voice.

Not that anyone can hear my voice, the way it actually sounds. They thought of everything, it seems, and cater to those of us who don’t want to play a game as ourselves.

I like video games because they take me as far away from real life as I can possibly get.

Heading back towards the microwave, I pop open the plastic door, grab a fork – after a quick rinse, it’s perfectly useable – and grab the container and cold soda. Truly, I’m living the high life.

I plunk down in front of my computer and put the headset on, after a quick sip and a grimace. Has to be just my imagination, but I’d swear on any grave offered that all soda, no matter what the brand, doesn’t taste as good once it’s gone flat.

Double-clicking the game icon, it takes no time at all for  _The_ _Free Realm_ to open – something that never fails to impress me, given how shoddy my desktop is. With most regular web pages, it takes a good thirty seconds longer than ‘normal’. If I had that kind of lag in-game, I’d probably have torn out my hair, already.

‘ _Welcome back, Wingspan.’_

_Ping._

The wide visor blocks everything else out of my vision, and I thank my seventh-grade teacher for being so adamant that our class learn to type without looking at the keys. My left hand finds the arrow keys on my keyboard, while my right rests on the mouse, and I can see my avatar’s body as though it were my own.

That is, if I happened to be a curvaceous female wearing armor over spandex. People tend to be nicer to women, in video games. At least, in theory.

_Ping. Ping._

Chat requests all over the damn place. The theory is half-true; people are nicer, up to a point. It’s not unusual for me to get several trade requests, just for them to  _give_ me things. They follow me around and request that I join their party, try to bribe me when I inform them I already have one, and then try to bait me into a sex chat.

In part, I guess it’s my own fault for spending a good hour on character customization, figuring that if I was going to be waltzing around a virtual world with the ability to see myself, I wanted to look damn good.

Quick to shut off the main chat, I minimize the window notifying me that the server has updated – means new quests and potentially new features, but I prefer to learn about those by doing rather than by reading. I open my list to see which of my party members are online, and begin wandering through the main city square.

My only complaint about the entire world of  _Free Realm_ is the depressing grayscale of the gaming world. Thick smoke drifts over the sky the way clouds naturally wade through, and the colors of the buildings and roads are drab, like reds, blues, and greens have bled out from the city into the surrounding forests. In the woods, there’s color – almost too much of it. In the city, it’s all sepia tones, gray, and clockwork.

Only the people add a dash of color if they’ve bothered to dye their armor, but even those hues are dulled, as is the fashion. The worst offender is standing atop a grand stone dais, waving about a silver cane with a smile too wide for his face: the Quest Master.

Before I immerse myself in escapism, I do a quick blind test of my container and hiss. Still too hot to want to eat, yet. To my dismay, though, I can feel my phone starting to vibrate in my pants pocket…and I know who it is.

For one thing, no one else calls me. I don’t have any friends who’d urgently want to talk to me – I get the occasional text from my old high school friends, sure, but they’ve moved on to bigger and better things. It’s my mom. It’s always my mom.

Calling and asking if I’ve gotten back any word from one of the colleges I applied to, today. Again, like always.

I could remove my VR headset and talk to her. By the time I log out properly, I’ll have missed the call… But doing  _that_ would mean interrupting the tech, and I’d be coming back to a glitched game. Weird pixelated textures, dialogue and messages coming through incorrectly or not at all, taking a step to find that I’m suddenly literally inside a wall.

Not worth it just to disappoint my mom. I’d have to restart everything.

I wait until the phone stops buzzing, and pretend the little guilty twist in my gut is just hunger.

Opening my current quest log, I sigh upon seeing that we haven’t collected any recent ones. I suppose it doesn’t matter, seeing as only five-sixths of our party is online.

Sending out a quick generic message to the other four who are online, I wait until I hear the telltale ‘ping’ of a response.

Newts. The chat screen pops open, a feature I tend to dislike, as it obstructs part of my vision.

_Newts:_ “You bored?”

“Very,” I say out loud without thinking, before rolling my eyes at myself. In-game sound works much the way it does in real life; Newts can’t hear me, from so far away. Instead, my fingers rocket over the keys.

_Wingspan:_ “Half to death. What’s everyone doing?”

_Newts:_ “GM + WF are level grinding.”

_Newts:_ “No clue where KB is.”

It’s about time, I inwardly vent. Whiteflower, our healing mage, is a good ten levels behind the rest of us – and it isn’t for lack of hours logged, online. She spends a lot of the time milling about the city being spammed with requests for healing and buffing spells, instead of leveling her character up like the rest of us do.

The irritating part is that she generally doles them out, like the candy man scattering free sugar around. Or-…

Well, there are less kind comparisons to make, but I wouldn’t make them. Not about Flower.

_Newts:_ “I’m just farming crystals until HB gets online. X_X”

_Wingspan:_ “Good call, the rest of the group will owe you big time.”

_Newts:_ “:D That’s the idea.”

Emoticons. They, personally, drive me crazy. Newts uses them constantly. The fact that he’s using actual words, though, and not  _just_ the emoticons, means he’s in high spirits.

_Wingspan:_ “So where are you exactly? Outside the city?”

_Newts:_ “Underground.”

_Wingspan:_ “Sewer crystals. Gross. Alright, I’ll farm with you.”

_Newts:_ “:P”

Those emoticons sometimes make me think he’s flirting with me. I’m never offended, with Newts; he’s (apparently) notorious for propositioning other players for sexy role-play chats, but he never has, with me. To be honest, I was offended about  _that_ for a long while.

Not because I  _want_ him to hit on me – I get enough of that from other random players – but, what, am I not good enough? Did I not make my avatar attractive to him?

I’ve spent more time thinking about that than I probably should have.

Making my way towards the nearest entrance to the underground – a manhole, with a ladder leading down to the cavernous ‘sewer system’ – I bring the map up from the corner of my screen, scanning it for the telltale blue dot that indicates one of my group members. The mass of bustling yellow and white points (regular players and NPCs) vanish from view, for the most part, as I drop down and the sound of my boots hitting pavement fails to echo against the stone walls.

Not realistic, sure, but it doesn’t need to be. The mechanics of things like sound aren’t nearly as important as the rest of the virtual experience.

Newts isn’t terribly difficult to track, the blinking blue dot only a few paces away around the corner. Those familiar black robes stand out even in the darkness of the sewer, highlighted with a muted green over the metal boots, pauldrons, and cowl – it’s a pretty badass look, and I’m a little envious. I never expected the over-sexualized female armor to bother me, but I started to identify with the indignation the girls at bars voice, within the first few hours of gameplay.

_Wingspan:_ “Hey Newts. You’re looking especially rugged and handsome today. You know. For a mage.”

_Newts:_ “Bite me. :)”

_Wingspan:_ “Want me to?”

_Newts:_ “You’re so charming.”

It’s becoming familiar practice, for me to banter with Newts…generally, just because he doesn’t flirt back. It’s my own personal brand of retaliation. Maybe I really am beginning to develop a bit of a conflicting complex over who thinks I’m a pretty girl.

The crystals jutting out of the filth are easily plucked free, but doing so is always a hassle. It takes about a hundred of them to make even the most minor of improvements to armor and weaponry, at this stage of the game. Gathering them is always a massive chore. Being a virtual reality game, the part that’s nearly painful is the inability to multitask the job with other things. I would have killed to be able to watch a movie at the same time. Come to think of it,  _that’s_ my chief complaint.

_Wingspan:_ “How many so far?”

_Newts:_ “About 200.”

_Wingspan:_ “Whoa. You’ve been at this for a while.”

_Wingspan:_ “I would have like, hundreds of your babies, that’s how deep my admiration is running right now.”

_Newts:_ “:\”

He doesn’t seem terribly impressed, suddenly; the helmet is extraordinary at mimicking the player’s facial expressions, and his choice of emoticon about sums it up. I almost feel sheepish, wondering if I’ve pressed the playfulness a little far.

_Ping._

I don’t dwell long; in a second personal chat, I’ve received a response from my fellow rogue. Knifebaby seems to labor under the impression that the two of us are good friends, which means I’m better at covering up how much she annoys me than I thought I was.

It isn’t that I don’t like looking at her avatar. The dominatrix outfit is hot, I suppose, but her attitude can be overbearing. She’s just a little much to handle, condescending at times, and has a warped sense of feminism.

I like to think of myself as a progressive guy. Apparently, by not thinking as she does – that no man in the world deserves a position of power, no matter what his personality, while all women should be treated like queens regardless of  _their_ faults – I am a sexist bastard.

It’s probably a very lucky thing that my gender is a secret, online.

_Knifebaby:_ “You questing?”

I don’t need to lie to dissuade her from one-on-one gaming.

_Wingspan:_ “Crystal farming with Newts.”

_Knifebaby:_ “I’ll meet up with you when Flower is free.”

It isn’t even remotely surprising for her to say that. The male members of the group are quietly loathed by Baby, and she only ever meets up with me when the full group was there or if it’s just the two of us.

Flower isn’t ‘proudly female’ – whatever that means – and quite meek in demeanor…something that drives Baby insane. Still, she’s better company than a man, Baby seems to think.

_Wingspan:_ “Looks like Baby isn’t in the mood to get down and dirty. Which sounds actually really gross, now that I say it aloud.”

_Newts:_ “:\”

Oh god, I’m digging my grave deeper. That’s two unimpressed emoticons in a row.

The finger on my cursor is rapid-clicking so fast that it’s becoming an incessant stream of background noise, under the ambient game noises, in a sad attempt to over-harvest. Like a few more will appease Newts and show I’m making a valiant attempt to both match his efforts and remove my foot from my mouth.

I need a different direction to take the conversation in.

_Wingspan:_ “So, what do you even do when you’re farming down here? Assuming you multitask.”

_Newts:_ “I’d go insane, if I didn’t.”

Oh thank god, actual words and not smiley faces.

_Newts:_ “I have a few friends online who’ll roleplay with me whenever we’re both online.”

I raise one eyebrow, but I don’t make the mistake of turning my head without making sure my hand hasn’t slipped. If I move the mouse and keep clicking, my collection’ll stop, which is just plain obnoxious. The monotony and irritatingly demanding precision demanded from this part of the game is stunningly similar to real life.

_Wingspan:_ “Figured most people RP in person. Or, you know. With your avatars in the same place, so you can see the other one emote and all that.”

_Newts:_ “>_> There aren’t in-game emotes for the stuff we roleplay, Wings, this game is rated PG.”

I snort.

_Wingspan:_ “Good point. Hey, do you want to go do a quick weapon upgrade?”

I get my answer before Newts even gets out a sentence. He’s turning his entire body away from the shiny patches of the wall, latching to the invitation to break the routine. I’m just glad to distract us both before the conversation turns towards something sexy.

If I start reflecting on my lack of game even  _inside a game_ , I’m just going to get depressed.

_Newts:_ “I  _do_ have more than enough to boost my casting speed. : O Westward?”

_Wingspan:_ “Nice. You lead, I’m right behind you.”

The animation once again proves to be most impressive in its details; Newts’ cloak swishes and sweeps the ground the way real cloth would, the flood of lamplight off the walls casting fascinating shadows over every fold. The sewers wouldn’t suit a community the way they’d have to in real life, though; they’re a straight-shot hub of passageways without much twisting or turning. Not that I’ve ever been down an actual sewer, but I feel like whoever designed the city’s underground either didn’t know what plumbing’s for, or was in very severe denial.

Or maybe I’m just chock full of bitching and they wanted to include a few shortcuts here and there. It’s helpful. I shouldn’t read into it.

_Wingspan:_ “So, what do you want for crystals?”

_Newts:_ “It’ll depend on how many you need. What do you want to upgrade?”

_Wingspan:_ “Last I checked, I could exchange fifty crystals for +2 to attack power.”

Which, I would love to know the logic behind that too. It’s another part of the suspension of disbelief between reality and a role-playing game, but one catch-all upgrade item doesn’t make a lot of sense, in practice. What would crystals actually do? Am I using them to sharpen my arrows?

Newts has a crystal ball sort of weapon. What’re they doing for  _his?_ Are they melting them down, creating a bigger and better orb?

I’m familiar with how these games work, but like any skeptical gamer who’s had a shitty day, I can’t stop the running commentary on all their fallacies and failings.

_Wingspan:_ “I’ll give you all my health potions.”

_Newts:_ “ >:(“

_Wingspan:_ “Not an impressive offer?”

Newts makes a scoffing sound very similar to the one I would have made in response to a suggestion that stupid. At least I’m self-aware about it.

_Newts:_ “Mana potions, maybe. I’ll need those fully stocked if I’m going to be rapid-casting.”

My hand moves over to the keyboard, tapping my ‘I’ key to bring up my inventory. Surveying my options as I walk on-course, courtesy of the forward arrow key, I inwardly wince.

_Wingspan:_ “I have nine?”

_Newts:_ “XD Never mind, no.”

_Wingspan:_ “Nine is a perfectly acceptable number!”

_Newts:_ “I was thinking at least 25 or so.”

_Wingspan:_ “Rogues don’t need that much mana, why would I have that stocked.”

My little blue mana bar was almost always maxed. Like health, it doesn’t regenerate very fast in this game…but archer-class rogues don’t have many skills they can learn that rely on magic. I, especially, don’t. I prefer the moves that let me fire five arrows at a time at multiple targets. Because fuck physics.

Thankfully, Hellblazer signs on; the flashing notification alerts every member of our group. As our unofficial leader, Blazer coming home from work is typically a good indicator that we’re going to collectively find something to do.

I’m quick to send him a greeting, thinking a quest might be in my best interest. Quests mean reward items. Reward items that I potentially won’t want, and thus could trade to upgrade my stuff.

_Wingspan:_ “Hey, Blazer. Quests?”

_Hellblazer:_ “Fuck. Yes. Need to kill something. NOW.”

He’s angry; that’s good. Blazer always plays better when he’s had a hard day at work and is at the peak of ‘pissed off’.

_Hellblazer:_ “Just messaged the others. Meeting in the Giver’s Square.”

_Wingspan:_ “Got it.”

I type in the message and turn towards Newts, who’s clearly received the notification from Blazer, as he said. A quick check of my inventory again, and I find out that I can easily teleport there – I’d recently stocked up four teleportation spheres, possibly one of my favorite items for the sake of laziness – but I follow Newts back towards the ladder, letting him go first to preserve my modesty. I’m lucky enough to have chosen a class that isn’t forced into a tiny skirt, but the bodysuit is still plenty revealing.

_Wingspan:_ “Raincheck on the trade, sugar daddy?”

He pauses halfway up the ladder, shaking his head before ascending the rest of the way.

_Newts:_ “Not my kink. And I still want a fair trade for the crystals, guildmates be damned.”

Above ground, it seems that most people are getting home from their jobs and logging on to play. The central gathering point, the Giver’s Square, is bustling with more life than I can ever recall seeing at even the most crowded places in town, and it’s difficult to tell who’s real, and who is not.

Only the slightly shadowed faces and hollow tones to their voices give the NPCs away as not being piloted by real people. I sometimes make a game out of spotting them; the boy and girl seated on a bench with a book spread across their laps – those two are obviously not real people, though I haven’t seen that pair of NPCs before. I initially think the woman near them, with thick blonde hair and standing very primly, is a player character, but her repetition proves me wrong. Formulaically, she lifts a mirror, inspects herself, checks her pocket watch, and then puts them both away. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Across from them is someone I first think is an NPC. They are huddled on the ground, rocking back and forth, and I hear weak sobs from their direction – obviously, I think, a NPC with a side-quest to offer. Passing them, though, I see that the face isn’t shadowed, and their outfit is too wild.

Weird. I didn’t know that our avatars could emote like that. Then again, my go-to command is ‘dance’, which I like to do despite Hellblazer informing me that I look like a ‘fucked up virtual stripper’, followed by pleas from Gunmetal to stop and mutters about how he never wants to see me that way.

I have to play around with the emote commands, I muse, and go back to picking out the ‘fake’ people from the real ones.

The broad-shouldered warrior with wild black hair, though… I know he’s an avatar. Steel over bloody red, Hellblazer modeled his character on some kind of wild animal, I’m sure. The armor is light, and decorated with red-tipped spikes – as are the goggles set back on his forehead, red lenses mirrored. He looks like a vicious thing, and even if he wasn’t the man in charge, I’d think twice about challenging anything he said. In the gaming world, that is. For all I know, in real life he could be a weedy, unobtrusive guy who’s forced to wear a tie and a pocket protector as part of his work uniform.

_Hellblazer:_ “What the FUCK IS TAKING THEM SO LONG.”

Real-life musings aside, there’s further reason not to want to test his patience; he has a short fuse which is only ever dampened by the presence of his Internet crush.

At least, that’s my hypothesis.

The arrival of Gunmetal and Whiteflower seems to placate him, even though the entire group isn’t yet together. I spot the bright auburn hair, first. The fact that I can see her at all past Gunmetal is simply amazing.

The game makers haven’t done our petite healer any favors with her character design. Personally, I think she looks almost childish, miniscule proportions making her as delicate as her name, but the ‘sexy’ robes give her curves that kind of bother me. A little white dress with a cape isn’t as innocent as Flower likely intends, thanks to the thigh-high stockings and the golden buckles up the bodice which aren’t done up properly. I know if she  _could_ have done them up, she would have; character design should have been even more customizable.

Gunmetal looms, a great hulking behemoth clad in dull iron. He designed his character, I think, to be a tank through and through. I’ve never seen his avatar’s face, due to how he’s covered it up – a helmet over his hair and a mask over his entire face keeps his every feature concealed. My hypothesis is that he messed up on the character creation screen and didn’t want to be mocked for it.

The pair of them take ages to trudge through the Square, simply because Flower keeps stopping at every request – and possibly, when no one requested she stop, at all – from groups that lack white mages or individual players pestering for strength boosts, defense buffs, healing spells…

I know how that is. I made the mistake of playing a healer, once. The difference was, I didn’t feel obligated to  _listen_ to them, the way Flower apparently does.

“That makes five out of six,” I say, and flex my fingers over the keyboard. The joys of microphones; there’s no need to type, with the others so close.

My female voice is still pretty foreign to my ears, and it always gives me a bizarre sense of detachment to hear my regular tones leave my mouth, only to echo perfectly in everything but pitch. Hellblazer makes a quiet huffing sort of sound, plainly still irritated, but watches his temper more warily.

“Where’s Baby?” Gunmetal, close enough for us to hear him, seems to be physically dragging Flower after him. If their avatars were capable of the movement, I’m pretty sure he would be doing exactly that. With the way he totes her around and primarily focuses on protecting her during every battle, I’m likewise starting to wonder about the pair of them, too.

Protect the healer, I understand just fine. The tension that sometimes occurs over the group chat between Blazer and Gun, though… That makes me raise an eyebrow.

I hope to god they both know her in real life. Her avatar really isn’t one I’m personally comfortable lusting after.

“Taking forever,” Hellblazer is almost growling. “Even you two were faster, and you were outside the city.”

“We used spheres.” Whiteflower, I’m pretty sure, doesn’t use any vocal modifiers; her voice is as frail as _she_ is. “Maybe she doesn’t have any.”

“I’m messaging her to hurry up before I find a PvP zone to murder her in,” Hellblazer mutters.

I’m not sure if he manages to send the message before our assassin slips through the crowd. Knifebaby’s armor is eye-catching, because it  _isn’t armor_ . Avatars like hers are the reason people like me are continuously chatted up in hopes of the dialogue turning dirty.

“I have five minutes before dinner.” Now, _hers_ is a voice mod, I’m positive. Outside of some questionable phone lines, I don’t think most women have that constant sultry tone.

“Then why are you even online?” Hellblazer demands. “We can get the quest as a group without you.”

“Excuse _me_ for wanting to let you know,” Knifebaby snipes. “It’s easier to log out and log back in here anyway. Just don’t leave the Square.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hellblazer grouses, and a door shimmers into view behind Knifebaby. Her avatar turns, opens the door, and steps through, vanishing – she won’t be gone very long, we’re all well aware. She only ever grabs food off the table and comes right back to gaming, taking breaks to remove the VR helmet and grab a bite to eat.

Which prompts my stomach to growl. My lasagna is probably stone-cold by now, and I am an idiot for forgetting about it.

…I’ll check out the new daily quest, first.

The Quest Master is leaning over on his dais, twirling about his silver-tipped ivory cane. Closer-up, he is the most unnerving of the NPCs for his artificial air; that big smile and shadowed face, the darkness cast more thickly due to the low-brimmed bowler hat he wears. His dusty coat tails flare, revealing that the shirt beneath is patterned with dark blotches, and his pants are stitched together in patchwork faded colors.

That cane unnerves me a little, too. There are cracks and dark streaks trailing through the staff, like it may have been fancy once but has been too badly weathered to ever be mistaken for clean, no matter how viciously it’s scrubbed.

…I have to hand it to the game makers. It’s an impressive amount of detail on a single character, but I guess that since he’s the primary NPC the players talk to, that makes a lot of sense. Still, as bleak as the atmosphere of the game can be, the Quest Master has a downright unnerving air to him that makes me think he’d be better suited to a survival horror game. Particularly one that took place in a carnival, or zoo, or something catering to the freaks who enjoy twisting their childhood memories into terror.

“Hey, asshole,” I speak up first to engage him in conversation; he turns toward me, a telltale sign that he’s going to respond (for a short time) just to my voice only.

“You don’t need to be rude…” Whiteflower mumbles.

“He’s not a real person, Flower,” my eyes roll. “Plus, if he was? He’d be an asshole.”

“Greetings, little girl,” he twirls his cane, and I swear that I can almost feel it whiz over my head. He has a tone full of laughter, with a touch of condescension – that’s why I have such choice words for him. “Tired of sitting idly by?”

“Seriously, fuck this guy,” I groan.

“I don’t recognize your response,” I swear he’s on the brink of a taunting laugh, every time he says that. “Answer simply. Tired of sitting idly by?”

“Yes,” I reply, and I can hear the edge of exasperation in my female voice. As a low-brow AI, he can’t register tone, but to me that just makes him seem all the more smug. He draws back, slipping a gloved hand into his breast pocket, and removes a white-backed card to hand to me.

_Ping._ _‘New quest in log.’_

The others receive it, as well; next to me, I can see Newts’ eyes tracking invisible movement as he reads over the quest.

“Daily quest is a fetching one,” he sounds a little let down.

_Newts:_ “:|”

I laugh, a little; unnecessary, but it’s typical Newts, to emote through text even when we can hear him just fine.

Double-clicking on the quest log screen, I highlight the new daily quest, ‘Unlocking Doors.’

‘ _The Quest Master has the Key to the City. Trade him these four items for the key:_

_Blood,_

_Bone,_

_Hair,_

_An Eye._

_Lock five doors with the Key to the City, and then you may unlock your own.’_

“That’s a little grisly,” my eyebrows fly up as I snort in a distinctly unladylike fashion. “What do you think, just generic monster drops?”

“Probably,” Hellblazer’s armor clinks as he curls his hand around the hilt of his sword, clenching it into a fist. “All I care is that I get to slaughter virtual things.”

There’s a twist of hunger in my gut, regrettably reminding me that I can’t eat with the VR headset on. “Hold on…debating with myself.”

“About what?” Newts questions.

“I got myself dinner, and then didn’t eat it. I’m starving.”

“So you’re logging off?” Hellblazer sounds _displeased_. I balk, mainly to avoid the onslaught that is Blazer’s ire, but also because I genuinely want to quest.

“I’ll stick around for one kill, then power through dinner?” I hesitate. Now that I’m dangling the promise of cold lasagna in front of my face, logging off quickly just to snag a few bites is all the more tempting.

I’m starting to deeply resent how bulky they made the headsets.

“Just go eat,” Blazer retorts. “We’ll head to the outskirts of the city and level grind until you and Baby are back.”

I have to fight the temptation to ask if he’ll fly into a rage if I leave, but I decide not to potentially make his mood even worse by prodding. He’ll probably calm down a little, killing miscellaneous game-creatures until I appease my stomach.

…Hopefully he won’t calm down _too_ much, so he’ll still be at peak gaming performance for the quest.

My fingers find the ‘escape’ key, pressing it to bring up the tiny gray dialogue box in front of my eyes, asking whether or not I was sure I want to quit. Clicking ‘yes’, my avatar automatically turns as a door appears behind me.

My character’s hand reaches out to the doorknob, and tries to turn it.

It doesn’t open.

For a long moment, I simply stare at the screen, assuming it to be a glitch. The game has always been seamless, in my month of playing – no loading screens, no random hitches. A statistical miracle. It only makes sense that I’d encounter one, eventually.

Another few moments pass.

“Wings? Aren’t you logging out?”

I jiggle the doorknob.

I wonder how the hell I managed to jiggle the doorknob.

Suddenly, I’m feeling cold, inside. Something icy settles in the pit of my abdomen, and the burn of my hunger suddenly feels a lot less significant.

“I’m trying,” I reply, keeping my voice impressively even. “It’s-… I think it’s locked.”

“What’s locked?” Newts sounds as perplexed as I am, but isn’t sharing my touch of panic. I try to bring up the ‘troubleshooting’ screen, fingers seeking my keyboard, but…I’m not feeling it, anymore.

I’m not feeling anything. My hands have gone numb.

“The door, the door is locked,” I sound a lot less composed. “I can’t exit the game. Are you able to log out?”

I turn to see the door appear behind Gunmetal, while the others are looking on, uncertain. One also appears behind Whiteflower, and nearly in tandem, they turn to step through the doors.

They can’t. The doors simply remain there, firmly shut. Gunmetal, possibly on instinct, rams his massive shoulder against the door – to no avail.

…He shouldn’t have been able to do that. There is no emote for that.

“Gun-…”

“I know,” he sounds as unnerved as I feel.

“How the fuck-… Hold on,” Blazer is trying it, now, swearing a blue streak when he finds himself in the same situation. “What the _hell_ is going on?”

“Can we log out another way?” Newts frowns, his eyes darting between each one of us. The doors are fading out of sight, again. “Removing the helmets?”

“Have you never seen a movie featuring virtual technology?” I laugh, but it sounds hollow, even to me. I might be in shock.

“I’m trying it,” Newts dismisses, lifting his hands towards his head. We falter at the same time.

“How are you-...”

“I’m moving in-game,” Newts swallows almost audibly. He brings his hands back down, flexing each finger, staring hard at them all the while. Getting a bit frantic, I’m trying to type, looking for the door again, feeling sick to my stomach –

It doesn’t make sense. There is no possible way for the virtual reality technology to extend to the rest of our bodies. Why the hell aren’t I able to feel my mouse, the keyboard?

“Is there a problem, _little girl?_ ”

Slowly, I look towards the Quest Master.

I haven’t engaged his attention, I haven’t spoken to him…but he is giving me an unnervingly wide grin, all teeth and superciliousness. Hesitant, I take a step towards him, “Are…you talking to me?”

“Of course, darling,” he replies smoothly. Too smoothly. “You seem to be having a little trouble. Something I can help you with, honey?”

There is a hand on my shoulder. I don’t want to process the fact that I can feel that. Gunmetal has gripped me and pushed me behind him, a little; for a hysterical moment I’m more indignant over the fact that he seems to think I need to be protected. Between the Quest Master calling me ‘little girl’ and his attitude, I’m feeling pathetically small.

So much for my male pride. I’m definitely on my way to hysterical.

“What the hell have you done to us?” Hellblazer is likewise starting forward, sword drawn and wielding it as naturally as his avatar always has. I see a bit of surprise flicker over his face, rigidity settling in his shoulders. He’s becoming aware of his body – I am, too.

I can tell…we all are. My voice is my avatar’s voice. My center of gravity is off, I’m slighter in frame but almost thicker around – or so it feels – and the strap across my chest keeping my quiver of arrows in place is uncomfortably constricting.

I am a woman.

Oh god.

I feel a little stupid, that this is upsetting me as much as it is, but I’m cursing myself endlessly for ever making a female avatar.

Then again, I hadn’t exactly expected to become her.

“Welcome to the daily quest, pumpkin,” the Master leers down at the five of us. “It’s the one-month anniversary of _Beyond the Free Realm’s_ release date! We’ve marked the occasion with a very special quest!”

Whiteflower has gone so pale that I’m convinced she’s about to faint.

“Explain,” Hellblazer snarls. “You’ve done something to us-…”

Behind us, we hear the distinctive click of a door opening.

I turn sharply in time to see Knifebaby step through. Everything about her looks artificial – her steps are too rigid, her body doesn’t move naturally. All ‘normal’, within the game. The more I notice, the faster I realize it only looks strange because everyone around me is suddenly moving like a real person.

“ _Hold the door!_ ” Newts lunges towards her, at the door – he tries to grab it and hold it open, but it slips through his grasp.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Baby sounds alarmed. “Back off-…”

“Baby, get the door back, _now_ ,” I whirl towards her, knowing she’ll listen to me over Blazer or Newts. “Just do it!”

She looks confused – a bad sign, her expression is starting to look too real – and she turns, the door fading back into sight. “Okay…but why…”

I grasp at the handle. Cold metal. Locked.

“How are you doing that?” Her eyes start to widen.

“You try to open it,” my voice is shaking, and it would be embarrassing if things like that mattered.

“Screw you, I just got back in game!”

“You don’t get it!” I snap. “We can’t log out. The doors are locked, and the more I think about it, the creepier it is, because you’d have to program a ‘locked’ animation into the door.”

“What do you mean ‘locked’?” I know what’s going to happen before Knifebaby does, and could have predicted it even without either of us trying to get out.

As she swears and fumbles to ask what’s going on, I go back towards the Quest Master. The others can explain what little we know to her, I figure. I need to know  _more_ .

“Forget how this happened.” I hope I sound stronger than I feel. “How do we get out?”

“It’s all in the quest, little girl,” he purrs, and I feel entirely justified in how my back goes up. Real or not – I can’t tell anymore – there’s something knowing, in the way he calls me ‘girl’.

“I can’t exactly get to my quest log, right now,” I growl. “So how-…”

“I gave you a card, now, didn’t I, darling?”

My nails (sharp, long, irritating) dig into my palms, and I search myself for the blank-backed card he’d handed me. It takes until I start searching my armor for any kind of breastplate pocket that I realize where it is. I can feel my face going red as I draw the card from where it is hidden in my avatar’s cleavage.

Surreal as the situation is, I find myself unable to help copping a slight feel on myself, the heel of my palm brushing one of my breasts. Warm, heavy cushions that are almost faintly sore – overrated.

My head is really starting to spin.

The ‘key to the city’, referenced in the quest ‘Unlocking Doors’ – it seems fairly obvious, now. My gaze drifts up towards the Quest Master, trying to show him as much bitterness and hatred as I can possibly muster.

“This is a twisted fucking game,” I hiss.

“That’s _The_ _Free Realm_ for you,” he draws himself upright, so that he’s standing tall. The way he always looms over everyone on the dais used to make me feel as though he’s flaunting his position of power, over the players, trying to emphasize how small we are compared to him. This is the first time he’s straightened his back, and my reflexive shrinking away clues me in as to how much bigger than us he _actually_ is.

“Enjoy the quest, darling,” he smiles broadly. “You’d best hurry. There’s only _one_ Key to the City!”


	2. Chapter 2

Oh  _god_ .

I whip back towards the others. I’m not sure how much they heard, if anything; Whiteflower is trying to get close enough to Knifebaby to calm her down, which seems to be doing very little good. Baby is in a frightened frenzy, probably only not yet resorting to violence because one of the men haven’t approached her instead.

“Everyone calm down!” I bellow, and the voice that’s normally so deep when I do that comes out tinny and weak. That it does the trick at all is miraculous; they turn to me, and I regret it.

I just inadvertently nominated myself for the position of ‘rational one’. I  _really_ don’t want to be the person expected to be reasonable about what’s happening. Everything is moving too fast for me to keep up with, and I don’t even want to. Maybe it’s the unreality of the situation, or perhaps I am honestly just as weak as I’m feeling.

Either way, even though I have no one to blame but myself for the fact that every single one of my gaming companions is looking at me, I loathe them all on a personal level.

“…Okay, look,” I struggle to maintain the image I forced on myself. “The Quest Master says…we have to complete the quest to get the key to the city, and that key will open the doors. We’ll be able to log out.”

“This is insane,” Knifebaby nearly spits. “You can’t be serious-… You’re not. Are you?”

“No point in lying, is there?” Hellblazer mutters. “…Fuck… What the _fuck_.”

“We have to do something,” Gunmetal simply sounds numb. “The quest, obviously. What do we do for it? Find…”

“Blood, a bone, an _eye_ ,” I groan. “Oh god. Do you think…it can just be anyone’s? I’ll give up my hair, or whatever, we can make this quick…”

“Wrong!” the Quest Master is eavesdropping from afar, it seems. He’s so irritatingly smug about it that I’m tempted to climb up onto his pedestal and knock him right off.

“Gather ‘round, darlings,” he coaxes us closer, “and I’ll explain whatever else needs explaining.”

“So these are ‘special’ eyes and bones we need to get,” I grumble. “Figures.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Inwardly, I swear. He has sharper ears than I expected.

“I confess, I prefer a creature of blood to provide me with blood, so on, so forth,” his voice grows softer as we get closer, as though he’s drawing us closer in and imparting a deep secret. “The question you should ask yourselves, little darlings, is what that means.”

“As in, ‘what the fuck is a creature of blood’?” I don’t care much for tact at this point. “ _Here_. I’m a creature of blood, right? I’ve got loads of it. I give you some of mine, does that take it off the list?”

“Anything’s worth trying, little girl.”

If he gets any more infuriatingly vague, I’m going to be pushed into some kind of rash action. I can’t even be sure of what, yet, but it will likely involve an arrow to the Master’s throat.

Reaching behind me, I grab at the shaft and withdraw the narrow weapon from my quiver with more practiced ease than should be normal, as though I’ve been doing this all my life. The moment I think too hard about it, though, I fumble with the shaft and nearly let the arrow drop to my feet. Hotly reddening, I draw the arrowhead over the back of my left hand, wincing when the hot sting goes cold. Real wetness is oozing from the cut, shoving the doubts I was optimistically clinging to into the recesses of my brain.

God fucking  _damn_ it. This is actually happening. Actual blood. The way the others are looking at me makes me realize that they were harboring the same hopes.

“H-…” my voice catches in my throat, a humiliating whimper. “Here. That’s one off the list, right?”

The Quest Master tucks his cane under his arm, drawing an unstained handkerchief from his front pocket. I’m already holding my hand up towards him before I can think twice about it, and he gingerly wraps the handkerchief around the bleeding scrape like he’s bandaging it.

Blood seeps through the thin cotton, and swiftly, the Master pulls back and gives it a private smile, like he and that scrap of red-tainted white know something hilarious that I don’t.

“No, my dear,” he tucks it back into his pocket, “but it’s appreciated nonetheless. No, darling, when I say a creature of blood, I’m thinking of something a little more…monstrous.”

I groan and wonder why I feel betrayed. The creep didn’t even trick me; I acted without thinking.

Stupid, stupid,  _stupid_ .

“What kind of monsters?” Newts speaks up evenly. “Are we talking about our run-of-the-mill game monsters, or something else?”

He tips the brim of his hat downwards towards our dark mage. “Not your run-of-the-mill quest, now is it, darling?”

“Alright,” Hellblazer speaks up. His arms are crossed, and it looks as though his anger has settled. If anything, that’s more unnerving than watching him tear things apart with the massive blade he totes around. He’s staring hard at the Quest Master, gnashing his teeth a little before maintaining his ‘calmness’, “What’s your angle, here? What the fuck do you need this shit for?”

“You’re asking why the giver gives?” the Quest Master sounds amused. “What the giver gets in the process of giving?”

“I will slam my sword into your fucking face if you’re going to try talking in circles,” Hellblazer’s hands are twitching, composure slipping right out of place. With a quick glance towards Whiteflower – she’s clinging to Gunmetal’s massive arm and shaking like a leaf in the wind – he wrestles his expression back into submission, and resists following through on his threat.

I’m tempted to do it on his behalf.

“I need ‘this shit’ the same reason _you_ need it,” the Quest Master’s legs bend, crouching like a toad but wearing a grin like a hyena.

I’m prepared to snap at the Quest Master again for his non-answer, but Blazer latches onto the only part he really wanted to know. “So you do need them.  Then, if you want ‘em?  Give us some fucking more to go on.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, honey, but hundreds of people are playing my game,” he laughs, and weaves out of the way when Hellblazer throws a punch, snapping at last. Newts grabs at one arm to haul the warrior back while Gunmetal seizes him around the middle to keep him from struggling out of his grip.

“You _son of a bitch_ -…”

“I’ve got all the time in the world to wait, darlings,” he’s standing again slowly, still chortling and letting his cane out from under his arm, resting it against the dais floor. “Lucky for me, none of _you_ have that time. Tick tock, boys and girls. Every minute you waste in here is a moment your body is withering away, out _there_ … Every minute you waste, someone else is finding what I need…”

“ _What?_ ” Gunmetal’s grip on Blazer almost breaks. My jaw drops slightly, wordless, and Newts’ face looks as slackened as mine feels. His darker complexion has paled a shade, making him look sick.

We could actually die.

“You _son of a bitch!”_ Blazer is roaring, but he has to have had most of his fight shocked out of him. He isn’t fighting as hard as he was.

“Blazer, _please_ ,” Whiteflower isn’t shaking, anymore, though her eyes are wide and she’s plainly terrified. “Stop fighting… We can’t waste time!”

“I’m going to get us out of here,” Hellblazer growls, and stops wrestling against the arms locked around him. “When I do, I’m coming right back in and _murdering you_.”

The Master only laughs more uproariously. I think it crosses each of our minds at the same time that we want to get as far away from him as possible, whether it’s to keep ourselves from losing it and trying to attack our way out, or because he’s unnerving us to the core.

For me, it’s a little of both. I wish he would stop fucking  _smiling_ like that.

“Alright,” for whatever reason, I don’t seem capable of keeping my mouth shut. I shouldn’t speak. I shouldn’t pretend to be calm, or rational. “Four items for the quest. Blood, bone, hair, an eye. Okay, some of those are probably obvious.”

“Are there undead monsters in-game?” Knifebaby asks nervously. “For bones-… I mean, I feel like I should know that, but I can’t even remember suddenly-…”

“None that we’ve seen, but it could still be a skeleton or something,” I nod a little. “Good thinking…”

“Blood could be obvious. Creature of blood, like a vampire or something,” Gunmetal mumbles. “Or it could be something…less obvious…it would figure… And, how would we spot a vampire…?”

“What the fuck even is a hair monster?”

“It’s the ‘eye’ monster that’s worrying me the most,” I swallow hard. “These’ll be special monster eyes, right? What’ll that be, like a Gorgon?”

“The ugly women with snakes for hair?” Knifebaby recoils. “How would we _fight_ a Gorgon?!”

“I don’t know-… I mean, I don’t even know if it _is_ a Gorgon, it was just a guess…!”

“Everyone calm down,” Hellblazer growls. “Jumping to conclusions isn’t helping _anyone_. So get a fucking grip, and let’s think! We need a first step.”

I cast another quick look back over my shoulder, towards the Quest Master. He’s speaking to another group of players, and one of the female avatars has begun to cry. He looks so pleased with himself that I start to feel nauseated.

“I’d guess the first step is to find out what we’re facing,” Newts muses. He’s being a lot more lucid than I am, and it’s actually starting to grate on me, too. I may not want to be levelheaded, but damn if I can’t envy anyone who actually seems to be exactly that.

“We don’t know that we’re after ‘monsters’, specifically, just that the things we need aren’t _regular,_ ” he goes on. “Normal blood and hair won’t do, we’re looking for something that stands out.”

Knifebaby’s unfocused gaze suddenly sharpens visibly, looking past the Quest Master. She lifts a hand to point right towards him. My urge to snipe at her is curbed when I manage to follow the direction of her finger.

My gaze initially skips past the  _thing_ , thinking it’s the Quest Master’s shadow. It takes too long for it to dawn on me that it isn’t close enough to him to be any sort of reflection. The sleeves are too long, the grin on his face is forced even wider than the Master’s, and as they move…there is a second of delay between the two of them, the far-away figure hitching momentarily to copy him.

I think I see something gleam as the copycat juts his chin higher, and the chill down my neck makes me certain he’s staring directly at us.

“That stands out,” Newts agrees, and has to hike the hem of his long robe to avoid tripping as he tears after Hellblazer. Knifebaby and I are quickest, and if she picks up on the fact that I inadvertently declare it a race between us, she doesn’t manage to compete very well.

The copycat turns tail to run, as well, bolting around buildings in a tight arc. I stumble a little as I round the same corner, less than graceful, and I’m nearly sent sprawling forward as Knifebaby collides with my back.

“ _Ow_ , damn it, Wings – why did you stop-…?!”

“He’s gone…!”

The others are catching up, Gunmetal and Whiteflower bringing up the rear, panting. Hellblazer is none the worse for wear, possibly fueled by tension, heading past me with his sword drawn.

“Alright,” he mutters tersely, “he can’t have gone far. Stick together, though, none of that ‘splitting up’ bullshit, no telling what could happen to us in he-…”

He’s cut off by Flower’s short screech. She leaps away and nearly falls into Gunmetal, eyes wide with her fist curled against her mouth. Hellblazer rounds so fast I almost get dizzy following him.

The copycat’s managed to sneak up behind Whiteflower, too-long sleeve flopping over his still-extended hand. Gunmetal pushes the little healer behind him, grabbing his own sword with a rock-steady hand.

“Did you touch her?” Hellblazer snarls, stepping forward until the end of his sword is nearly pressed to the copycat’s throat.

He only tilts his head, and I think – somehow – his smile splits wider. It takes up half his face…

The teeth are shark-like, pointed. I’m tempted to follow my instincts and fire an arrow right into that monstrous face, but I have no idea how to even land a hit.

“ _Talk_ , you sick freak, _did you touch her?_ ”

“I-it’s okay,” Whiteflower stammers. “J-just my shoulder…”

He doesn’t appear comforted, but slowly, he brings the sword down. Likewise, the Master look-alike lowers the hand that had still been poised to grab.

“What do you think?” Newts mutters to me privately. “One of our monsters?”

“Could be,” I’m desperately hoping it isn’t _his_ eye we need. The longer I look at him and try to meet his gaze, the more I feel a sense of _wrongness_. It’s as though he’s shoved some sort of discontent deep into the pit of my stomach, and it’s making that sick feeling twice as vehement, nibbling at my nerves.

“Say something, Smiles,” Blazer is starting to raise his weapon again; I don’t think he’s even conscious of it. “You know what the fuck is going on, right? What do you know?”

‘Smiles’ tilts his head the other way, and gestures wildly. It’s hard to tell, but I think he’s lifting one finger, like he’s trying to tell us to hold on one second. Then, he starts fumbling for something in his breast pocket.

A plain-backed card. Still with that fanged grin, he holds it towards Hellblazer, who hesitates only for a moment before snatching it from him. Slowly, he steps back.

_Ping_ .

For a moment, I think things are normal – my quest log window flashes before my eyes, like someone painted it on my pupils. Like a color stain left on my vision after looking into a light, it follows my gaze wherever it shifts, giving me plenty of time and no choice but to read it.

‘ _New quest received: Darling Valentine. Put together a beautiful bouquet.’_

Slowly, it fades again. I shove the heel of my palm to my right eye, digging it in until the pressure stops feeling pleasant.

“…Did anyone else-…” Gunmetal starts to mutter, unnerved.

“See the quest log screen pop up? Yeah,” I swallow hard. “Guess this is still just a game…”

Somehow, Smiles’ departure escapes my notice, and I’m definitely not the only one left baffled. Hellblazer begins swearing vehemently beneath his breath, sheathing his sword and running his fingers through his hair to grip at the roots. Whiteflower looks around nervously, but apparently decides that her priority is to take a loose hold of Blazer’s arm until he stops abusing his scalp.

“I’ve…never seen any flowers, around the city,” my brow furrows. “Do we think it even has _anything_ to do with the Quest Master’s thing?”

“Who knows,” Newts looks to be taking up the hair-tearing in Blazer’s stead, slipping the cowl’s hood down and burying his fingers in deep brown tresses. I can see every individual strand of hair, if I look close enough.

Newts notices me looking, and I promptly tear my eyes away from him.

“He looks like the Quest Master, but that could be a red herring,” I mumble as I muse. “Might also be our first lead. …Or, only lead.”

“So are we going to try initiating this quest?” Knifebaby asks shortly. “Even though we don’t know what we’re doing?”

“…Better than…not initiating it, isn’t it?” Whiteflower is timid, but slowly pulling herself together enough to speak. “If we’re not in quest mode, we’re just…hanging around, out here, waiting…”

“Like sitting ducks,” Blazer’s jaw clenches. “How long do you think before these desperate kids start getting violent?”

Gunmetal’s armor scrapes slightly as he hunches into himself, a little, and he moves to see back around the corner into the main area of the Square.

“Let’s not find out,” I take a couple of deep breaths, and before anyone can argue, I go to take the card and stash it. To my surprise, my half-baked theory is successful; the quest screen is brought up against my mind’s eye, and I try to focus hard on ‘selecting’ it.

There’s a quick flash – I might have blinked, and just imagined it – and the most imperceptible of changes to the color scheme around us. From the Square, there’s a sudden lack of noise that I didn’t even realize I had been tuning out. A minute ago, hadn’t there been screaming? Shouting? Crying? I swear I still feel the noise ringing around in my ears.

Only with their absence does it seem I’m capable of noticing. We’ve switched into Quest Mode, effectively making everyone but those we’ve teamed up with invisible to us. I could walk right through someone, and no one would ever know the difference. In the information packet I’d received, the game makers explained that it’s to enable every player to just enjoy their quests without needing to fear player-versus-player interrupting the experience. Not unless you’re in a PvP zone, or if you’re in Roaming Mode, will you ever have to fear your progress being impeded upon; that was the philosophy. The daily quests are exempt from the rule, in general, and I wonder now if  _this_ quest is the reason why.

I’ve heard loads of complaints about it, passing other chatting players and among fellow gamers at work. If they’re trapped, too, I bet they’re grateful for it, now.

“There,” I mutter. “At the very least, we’re avoiding other people… What now?”

“How should we know?” Baby crosses her arms over her chest. “You seem to have elected yourself president, Xena.”

I bite down on my tongue briefly, “I haven’t done anything like that. I was just  _saying_ -…”

Hellblazer doesn’t look as though he’s about to step in, despite his normal role as ‘group leader’, and Newts looks to be nursing the beginnings of a headache.

Surprisingly, it’s Whiteflower who says, “We don’t have time to fight, right now…!”

Gingerly, Gunmetal places a hand on Flower’s shoulder, the faint creak of armor interrupting our lapsed silence. “She’s right,” he sounds faintly unnerved, but also a little pleased that she said anything at all. “We’ve got to keep in mind, no one  _else_ knows what they’re doing, either… We might even be ahead just because we found that smiling guy.”

He has a point; no one else seemed to notice him. It could be a diversion, but…

“Worst that happens is, we’re wandering around with a goal in mind,” I clench the bow in my hand and draw it off my back – whether I know how to use it or not, I want it at the ready. “If we weren’t on the quest, we’d be doing the same amount of wandering…but, I guess, with nothing to look for. So, we good with this plan for now, or what?”

“It still doesn’t feel like much of a _plan_ ,” Baby fails to be subtle, muttering under her breath. Knowing her attitude, she probably purposefully spoke loud enough for my benefit.

“It’s still better than nothing,” I retort. “So?! Flowers. Who remembers seeing any?”

There’s a reflexive twitch from Whiteflower before she realizes I wasn’t speaking to her directly. “There might be some outside of the city?” she ventures, nonetheless.

“Right, good. So, we head east, or west?” I name the two directions with a way out into the surrounding world of the game. The area’s never been complete before, but maybe the server update fixed the problems and hitches.

To the south are the Smoke Stacks – a player-versus-player zone where plenty can be farmed and traded, but there isn’t much point to the area, otherwise. Even if there i _s_ a need to go there, I would think of a thousand things to avoid going; I really don’t care for the notion of being surrounded by other players who are scrambling for the same key we are.

Damn it, if only I chose a more defensible character. Perhaps a warrior – I should have built myself like a tank, like Gun…

At the northernmost part of the city is Dante’s Manor, a quest-specific mansion that no one has actually  _found_ the quest for, yet. It’s a source of vexation for many, and I privately theorized that the game makers created the location but scrapped the quest, leaving it an infuriatingly inaccessible shell.

“I would guess that any gardens would be in the residential area. But, if we go west, we can restock,” Newts points out. “I need mana, we could probably all deal with having more health potions – just in case you can’t get to everyone, Flower – I don’t have any teleportation spheres if a quick getaway is needed… And how badly do you want a melee weapon instead of those arrows?”

I’m glad he noticed. “A  _lot_ .”

“So west it is,” Hellblazer isn’t sheathing his weapon, I notice, both hands needed to keep up the heavy sword. I can’t really fault him – useless as my bow is, without the real-life skills to use it…I sure as hell feel a lot safer with it in my hands.

It niggles at me, a little, that I’m not sure how Blazer knows how to wield a sword in practice. That’s a far cry easier than firing an arrow, though, maybe. More so, the question of how our two mages will figure out how to cast spells scratches at the back of my brain. Subtly, I shoot Newts a side-glance and wonder if the same thing has occurred to him.

He appears lost in thought. Given the circumstances, I don’t have to wonder what’s got his head spinning.

Flower, on my other side, is following slower and risking trailing behind. She’s pulled out her staff, but I assume she had the same thought I did. She’s flexing one of her hands, a focused look on her pixie features, but nothing’s happening.

Not very confidence inspiring.

Following the western path, the familiar marketplace comes into view, people – not  _real_ people – milling about the town in varying states of apathy. I always thought it was a fault on the game designer’s parts, giving these people so little expression on their shadowed faces. I suppose so much emotion, and having them reflect the situation, would be a lot of work alongside the virtual reality technology…

Now I wonder if it’s deliberate. They look as trapped as I feel. Perhaps I’m projecting my feelings onto their faces, pretending to see what I feel.

To the distant left is the Inn – the automatic point of teleportation, when spheres are used.

I wonder…

“Hey-…” I point towards the familiar building. “You’d think they’d be like a regular inn, right? Food, beds? I’m starting to get _really_ hungry.”

“We don’t really have the time, Wings,” Hellblazer points out shortly.

“This is important,” I snap back. “We don’t know how far this realism goes, do we? If I eat something in-game, will I be less hungry? What about sleep, are we able to do that?”

“I don’t mind going with Wings to check out the Inn,” Newts volunteers. “Other players aren’t around, we’re probably perfectly safe.”

Hellblazer doesn’t need to echo any part of the mage’s statement; the look he throws towards him says it all. As much as I like having Newts take my side, I have to agree with him there . ‘Probably perfectly safe’ isn’t very reassuring on a  _good_ day.

“We’ll just go. Alright? Meet up with you at the weapon’s shop,” Newts briefly grips my shoulder.

“Wait,” Gunmetal appears briefly torn, glancing at Flower. “…We should at least keep the divide sort of even, you should have a warrior with you…”

“I’ll be okay,” Whiteflower says quietly, and I can tell she meant it to be a private whisper, but missed the mark. “It’s not like I’ll be alone.”

“…Okay,” he doesn’t sound very reassured, but steps away from her and towards us, instead. Despite being unable to see his face, I have a good feeling he’s giving Hellblazer a hard, mistrustful look. I think Blazer can tell too, given how pointedly he angles himself away and starts to lead Whiteflower and a sulking Knifebaby away.

“Alright, so…the inn,” I clear my throat, vaguely uncomfortable, if only because I’ve never really been in Gunmetal’s presence without Flower nearby. It’s a bit like seeing him naked, or missing a limb.

He’s already starting that way, walking just slightly ahead of Newts and me, like he’s expecting a dead-on assault. I pick up the pace to catch his arm.

“Careful about the tanking,” I warn. “Not just a game anymore. Nice of you to play human shield, and all, but…”

“Right, I know-… Sorry. I mean, not like I’m sorry about-…” he exhales. It’s a little odd to hear him fumbling his words. “Never mind.”

He shoulders the door open, and the three of us step inside. It looks as though the adult NPCs running the Inn have vanished, leaving behind only children. The teenage girl behind the front desk stands out as distinctly less darkened, possessing pale hair and light eyes that I can see past the gray cast on her face. What catches my eye the most, though, is the fact there’s a flower pot on the desk.

An empty flower pot. I swear a little.

“Welcome to the Inn of the Realm,” the girl greets with a dreamy, bored voice; her dialogue’s triggered by my voice. “My name is Gardenia. Would you like to check in?”

“No, thanks,” I lean forward against the desk. My limbs feel weighted down heavily, and I don’t _think_ my bow is to blame. It’s probably due to mental exhaustion. “Is there any food here?”

“Please rephrase your question,” comes the standard phrase in response to a question she hasn’t been programmed to know the answer to.

“Ugh, okay… Can I buy something to eat?” I try, over-enunciating out of annoyance.

“Please rephrase your question.”

“Damn it!” I pull away from the desk and turn my back on the girl. “Okay. So…probably no food around then.”

“Drink a potion?” Newts suggest. “See if it fills you up. Might be the closest this world has.”

I begin to nod, but stop. “How the hell do I access my inventory…?”

“Same way I get to my quest screen, I think. Concentrate hard enough on seeing the screen, then you’ll see it…”

It’s a pretty fuzzy description, but I try to do exactly that until it feels like I’m pushing my intentions out through my eyes, making them ache. At first, it simply looks like something fell into my eye and blurred my vision badly. Blinking repeatedly, the image clears until it’s recognizable; the inventory screen.

“God, this is fucked up,” I mutter, highlighting what I need with a movement from my eyes. I’m not sure how to physically remove the item, but find that my avatar seems to know for me; as though moving according to muscle memory, my hands reach into space unknown and withdraw one of my health potions.

“It might not work if you’re not injured,” Newts seems to be musing aloud as I uncork the flask.

Shooting him a dubious look, I start to lift it to my lips. “How about I try it, first, before grievously injuring myself?”

“Yeah, I’d prefer that. Still had to point out the possibility, though.”

I try to put the possibility of needing to wound myself out of my head, and tip back the flask.

It’s like drinking tasteless syrup. Thick, sticking to my tongue and the roof of my mouth, making me gag as it slides down my throat – it seems to pick up the unpleasant flavors already in my mouth, a raw cooper tang and bitter-sour of blood. I make a mental note, yelling at myself to stop chewing at the inside of my cheeks and at my tongue.

Any sting or aches in my body fade, and I feel the potion sink to the bottom of my stomach…but it doesn’t fill me. I cough, hacking a bit of the potion up onto the back of my hand –

Healed. I forgot that I’d even sliced it.

“Alright, well…good news is, potions heal like they do in-game,” I have a few false starts over the first word; I can still feel it clinging unpleasantly to the walls of my throat, like mucous. “Bad news is, it’s nothing like food. We can still starve to death in here, I think.”

“If we get really desperate, we’ll cook the monsters we kill,” Gunmetal suggests.

“Ugh,” Newts groans a bit. “Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

I begin walking back towards the door, and the other two don’t take very long to follow. “Okay, so…trapped in a world with no food, which means – like the Quest Master was sort of saying in that cryptic bullshit way – that gives us all a time limit. We pretty much have until we starve to death. How long do you think we’ve been in game?”

“I’d say no more than an hour or two, but I think game-time is still running,” Newts tilts his head back, looking straight up at the sky. “It should be, maybe…six o’clock, real time? Six thirty? I don’t know… Sun’s not due to set for at least one more hour, outside, but the sky’s already getting dark. It’s going to be…really difficult, to tell how much time has really passed.”

“Fuck.”

My mind is finding all new ways to break itself into tiny pieces, and the resulting headache makes me want to just collapse and demand that the others get on with things; I can just piggyback on their success and repay them for the favor, later.

Or I can squash those selfish thoughts before I let myself dwell on them any more than I already have.

“Fighting the urge to be a prick,” I breathe to myself. “Reining in the inner asshole. Okay.”

I think Gunmetal catches a bit of what I’m murmuring, judging by the questioning tilt of his head, but he doesn’t ask.

The weapon shop manages to look a lot more inviting than the Inn – a bit of a sign that this entire world is backwards – but the amount of gold I have on me makes a new weapon look like an embarrassingly futile dream. With what I have, I manage to purchase a decent-enough rogue’s blade.

Not that I have any idea how killing anything in-game will go. Will it be like gaming as usual? A health bar, no need to aim for something vital? Or will it be like killing something in real life?

…Do I even know _how_ to kill something? Someone?

That queasiness is back.

We don’t have too long to wait before the others enter the store, all three of them looking much like I feel. Gunmetal promptly steps forward to inspect Flower, actually physically turning her around to ensure she’s gone entirely unmolested in his absence.

“I’m fine,” she sighs, “Ken, I’m fine…”

“What did you figure out?” Hellblazer asks me. “Got a knife?”

“We figured out that we’ll probably starve to death in here, the world still seems to run on game-time, and I got an okay knife, yes,” I tick the facts off my fingers, flipping off the shop proprietor not entirely by accident. “Oh, and the normal NPCs aren’t like the Quest Master. It’s like they’re no more aware than they were before this fucked up quest started. One more thing? Does anyone know how fighting works, now that we’re actually _in_ the game?”

“…Shit,” Hellblazer clenches the sword more tightly, again. “Hadn’t even thought of that.”

“I was able to cut my hand, and that felt pretty fucking real,” I inspect the long dagger I just bought, the weight against my palm cold enough to assure me that I’m right. “I’ve got a bad feeling that anything that can die has to be killed, like…how we would, in real life. Anyone know how to kill a monster? Or an AI? Or a person, if we get attacked?”

My tone has been getting steadily more sarcastic, so the slight nod from Gunmetal unsettles me more than a little. Likewise, Knifebaby has started to half-raise her hand.

“I mean-… It’s not like it’s hard,” she hastily crosses her arms again. “Anyone who’s watched a _movie_ knows how to kill a _person_ …”

“People die pretty easily,” Gunmetal mutters.

“Not _as_ easily when they’re armed and possibly magic, for some of them,” Newts argues. “They can do everything we can. Heal, cast spells – some of them may be able to work a bow and arrows and get in some long-distance hits before we even get close-…”

“Are we seriously talking about this?!” I cut in, disbelieving. “I was more focused on the _monsters_ aspect of killing, not the players.”

“Doesn’t change that it’s a very real possibility,” Hellblazer is grim. “They’re the only enemy we even _know_ we have. Everything else is a fucking gray area, right now.”

I want so badly to argue that.

Outside, it appears as though the lights have gone dim, and streetlamps are being lit. I start heading towards the door, curbing my own tension as best I can, “Then let’s keep working on finding out who our enemies actually are. This isn’t a  _normal_ quest, there’s bound to be something blatantly out of the ordin-…ary…”

I trail off, staring in the direction of the Giver’s Square. Light is being beamed into the sky like beacons, and even from where I stand, I can hear the music. Light, tinkling carnival songs drift throughout the city like the smoky clouds overhead.

“That’s…new,” I’m only half-aware that I’m speaking. Whiteflower puts a hand to her mouth again, staring in the same direction with a look on her face like she wants to retreat. Knifebaby is uncomfortable; the shifting of what little armor she has on is as loud and grating as nails on a chalkboard.

“How the hell…” Blazer stares, and lightly grips Whiteflower’s shoulder with one hand, briefly resting his large sword against the ground. “Alright, our destination is pretty fucking obvious, now…”

“I’d say so,” I turn back towards the others. The only changes that ever took place at night were different enemies emerging from the woodwork. A big top tent is as much of a target as it’s trying to be.

“What about the flowers?” the healer worries her lower lip with her teeth, hand gingerly falling away. “We were going to the edge of the city…”

“Those will still be there when game-night is over,” I shake my head. “We should _definitely_ check that out.”

“Or you ladies could stay here,” an unfamiliar voice speaks up from my left, “and stick around so I can check you out.”

My hackles are up faster than Hellblazer and Gunmetal’s weapons were. The speaker is a wiry NPC lounging on a bench outside of the item shop. He has dark mirrored lenses over his eyes – silver-framed goggles with little adjustable knobs, like some complex timepiece. His boots look too slick and he’s got a collar so deeply cut that he had to have been modeled wearing female armor.

His outfit makes me hyper-aware of my own cleavage, which I self-consciously adjust the too-low collar of my bodysuit over. God  _damn_ the misogynistic bastard who thinks outfits like these are  _practical_ . Even with his eyes covered, I can feel him looking, and I send another mental apology to all the anonymous women I may have once ogled.

“We didn’t engage you,” Hellblazer manages to keep his cool better than he did with Smiles. “Don’t say another fucking word.”

“That’s a little rude,” the creep sneers. He’s getting up from the bench, too casually and independently for a regular NPC – reflexively, I step back, but that isn’t enough to block the venomously strong odor of cologne that knocks the wind out of me. The closer he steps towards us, the more I feel as though the scent is trying to crawl down my throat and choke the life out of me.

Unnervingly, he seems to have decided that I’m the best choice of conversational partner…assuming conversation is really all he’s hoping for, and I hope to  _god_ that’s the case.

“How about it?” Any attempt at sounding suave is coming off as intensely violating. I’m not sure when he managed to catch my hand. In all honesty, I didn’t notice he’d even done it until I’m already jerking back and throwing a punch.

My fist cracks across his jaw, but it feels like striking iron. It sends a painful jolt all the way up my arm, and reflexively I shake out my hand, hissing.

The creep is doing much the same, but…the sound is  _wrong_ . Honestly serpentine and cold. I can feel his glower as his hand runs over his smooth-shaven jaw. “Feisty…”

Gunmetal is pulling me back and half-positioning himself in front of me, and I’m pleased by his chivalry, this time. Knifebaby is seething, beside me, presumably out of righteous indignation on my behalf.

As we were scuffling with the artificial man, an NPC has been going from one streetlamp to the other, innocently lighting them and paying us absolutely no heed, as though we don’t exist. He’s about as far away from us as we were from the flirtatious scumbag, before he got a lot closer than I’m okay with.

“How are you able to interact with us?” Newts shoots at him, unimpressed and suspicious. “You’re not a regular NPC.”

“Not sure what you mean,” he gives his jaw one more dramatized rub and adjusted the lenses to better cover his eyes, though it looks as though he’s also preparing to lower them. Something in my gut tells me to look away, and I don’t fight the instinct. Maybe it’s the way he drags the letter ‘s’ or that smug little grin curling those thin lips. He’s striking up every warning signal I have.

“Not buying it,” Newts is advancing a little, too. My masculinity crumples a lot faster, now.

“We’ve got a six on one advantage, if you want to be difficult,” I want to do something intimidating, like flip my knife. I settle for brandishing it with all the confidence I can fake.

If  _he_ is faking it back, he sure as hell does a better job at it.

“No matter how many you’ve got, you wouldn’t be able to lay a hand on me…if I didn’t want you to,” this time, he’s leering specifically at Whiteflower. Gunmetal takes a half-step to block her from sight, too.

“Don’t be like that,” he tries to step around, but finds him too wide to manage. Nonetheless, he continues to leer. “I don’t touch pretty little girls until they beg me to.”

“I will _kill_ you.”

“You could try,” he gives a short, indifferent laugh, before weaving around Gun at last. Whiteflower promptly stands back, jumping visibly when she collides with a body and relaxing within the same instant upon realizing she backed into Blazer.

“Lagorio,” he introduces himself with a high-pitched sort of purr. “What’re your names? If you don’t tell me, I’ll just start calling you _sweetheart_.”

“Don’t tell him anything,” Hellblazer mutters. “Forget this fucker.”

“I second that,” Knifebaby turns away from Lagorio and nudges my shoulder. “Let’s just go. Giant carnival tent is way more important than this douche, right?”

I’m quick to agree.

Lagorio clearly isn’t about to let that slide.

He swerves around in front of Knifebaby and me, catching the two of us by the shoulder. His hands are heavy and cold.

“I hate having to repeat myself,” he hisses. “ _Stick around_.”

He shoves hard; I barely keep my balance.

“You know, _sweetheart_ , those are some pretty eyes you’ve got,” he hasn’t entirely let go of Knifebaby, freeing one hand to begin slowly lowering the obstructions in front of his eyes. “Since you’re showing me yours, how about I show you mine…?”

“ _Stop_.”

If only I’d went for the assassin sub-class. Being quick with knives isn’t even my forte, in-game. Still, it’s my lucky break that he’s distracted. One arm hooks around his shoulders, and I shove my blade up against his throat.

He pauses. Knifebaby goes utterly still, as though frozen in place.

“Jealous?” he asks snidely.

“Let her go,” I warn. Impressively, my voice doesn’t tremble. “What are you?”

Lagorio sneers audibly, and weaves out from under my hand. The blade’s edge slits clean across his throat.

Flower gasps, and I nearly drop the knife, but he looks none the worse for wear. It’s hard to keep the slightest composure as I watch him casually wipe at a wound that dribbles something too dark to be blood.

“I’m a heartbreaker,” he laughs, and unnervingly casual, he snatches the NPC lighting lanterns before he can walk by. All I really manage to see of what he does is the lift of his hand towards his face.

There’s a strangled gasp from the lantern-lighter. He’s seizing a bit, deep red dribbling from the corners of his eyes, and Lagorio lets him drop. He’s limp, lifeless, not a real person not a real person  _not a real person._

Lagorio slides the goggles back over his eyes.  “Now, look me in the eye and tell me you can’t stay awhile.”

There’s a push against my back – Knifebaby’s sharp nails and slim fingers – and someone says, “Run.”

My legs are working independently from my brain, right now. That’s probably the only thing that can save my life.

He’s calling something after us. All I catch is the cocky tone, and a short, hissing sort of laugh. The beat of footsteps drowns out everything else, and then my pulse blocks that out too, thrumming against my eardrums. Every breath is starting to feel like there’s a seam being torn through my lungs, forcing me to stop and double over, coughing and trying to even my air intake. Difficult, since every breath only hurts more.

I turn to see if Lagorio is following, but can’t make out anyone beyond my companions. Hellblazer has hoisted Flower off her feet, but she’s pushing away to backtrack over to Gunmetal, who’s a good few paces behind. Knifebaby has her hands against her knees, chest heaving distractingly – and right beside her, Newts pulls down the cowl, lips parted and sucking in breath like it’s first one he’s ever taken.

“We…all made it?” I force my back straight and fight off the dizzy gray. “Good. That’s…yeah…good…”

“What just happened…?” Whiteflower is weaving, holding onto Gun’s arm for support. “Did we just see…”

“A man die and start bleeding out the eyes? Yeah,” Knifebaby doesn’t even try to keep herself up, slowly dropping to the ground and running a hand through the dark disheveled hair that’s come loose from her ponytail.

“Fuck,” I groan. “So, uh…I think it’s _probably_ his eyes we need…”

“What?!” Baby shrieks. “How are we supposed to get them when just looking at that guy _killed_ him?!”

“I didn’t claim to have the answers, but you have to admit that killing a guy with his _eyes_ sounds pretty much like he’s exactly the monster we’re looking for,” I retort, exasperated.

“Monster, huh,” Newts mutters just loud enough for the rest of us to hear. “A monster that looks human.”

A lump forms in my throat. The game has never had monsters that are even vaguely humanoid; the closest there’s ever been are winged creatures with serpentine bodies, or hulking ogres that are too malformed to pass for even vaguely realistic.

“I sl-… I slit his throat, though,” I wrangle out. “It didn’t kill him. I didn’t even-… He slit _his own throat_ , and wasn’t hurt, what does that mean?”

“It means he’s a monster, and we should treat him like one,” Hellblazer speaks up firmly. “We can kill it. We’ve killed everything else, this is just another quest.”

“We can’t treat it like ‘just another quest’, we could _die_ ,” Gunmetal’s tone is more confrontational than I’m used to; I glimpse Flower’s wince, and the way she shrinks back makes it look as though she’s expecting the hostility to turn on her and strike out.

“Got to agree with Gun, here,” I interject tiredly. “Think I’d rather be too careful on this one.”

“We’re in a race.”

“We’ll _lose_ the race if we get _killed_.”

Hellblazer is giving me a look I know – the same one he levels his kill-of-the-day with before finishing it off. He’s pissed, but he’s also grudgingly nodding.

“Good, so…we’ll be clever about this,” I exhale. “One thing at a time. What… What ‘one thing’ should we be doing, first? Trying to get the eye, or going to the carnival?”

“Carnival,” Newts is readjusting the cowl over his face. “That time limit, we know about – it’ll probably be gone by the end of the ‘night’, and if we do this right, we may not have to be here for tomorrow. Besides, we can’t even be sure it’ll still be there after tonight…”

“Plus, don’t know about the rest of you, but I have no goddamn clue how we’re going to get this guy’s eye without someone getting dead,” my voice gets stronger, the less my lungs feel like they’re trying to burst open. “Alright, then – carnival.”

Blazer isn’t looking too thrilled with the conclusion we came to, but I dismiss his bias over the fact that killing Lagorio is probably a matter of pride, or jealousy.

It isn’t very far to walk, given how far we saw fit to bolt. Surrounding the entire Square is a rounded iron fence, a good ten feet taller than my avatar. Past the bars, everything is so colorful and lively that my eyes sting; I’m not accustomed to such offensive  _brightness_ in the game, used to sepia tones and grays that sometimes leave me melancholic. There are artificial children laughing, running around with balloons tied to their wrists, bobbing along in their wake.

My stomach churns hungrily, reflecting my indignation over the fact that there isn’t a single popcorn or cotton candy stand in sight. I was hoping for at least that.

“Got to be some front gates around,” I mutter, hand starting to trail over every bar as I follow the fence. Whiteflower pauses, pressing herself to a gap between to test whether or not she can slip through.

“I can _almost_ …”

“Your head would get stuck, even if you got the rest of you through without dislocating something,” Gunblazer pulls her away gently. “Can’t be much further…”

“I think we’ve looped around the entire thing,” I stop and glance up again at the top of the fence. Iron spikes, at the top… Even if I climb up on Gun’s shoulders, I won’t reach it without leaping. That’s assuming I have the ability to jump like a super-human. Otherwise, I’ll just be risking impalement.

“Having trouble?”

A darkly clad figure steps out from the shadow of a large sign, the curly script on it reading ‘The House of Mirrors’. The cane is the first definable thing I see, before I get a good look at that smug smile.

“Welcome to the carnival,” he greets. “Congratulations on being our first visitors!”

Automatically, I’m on the suspicious defensive. “What, really…? We’re the first players here?”

“Of course,” the Quest Master replies breezily. “Everyone _else_ is off trying to set themselves free. Care to come in?”


	3. Chapter 3

“We should turn back. Right now.”

For the first time  _ever_ , I wholeheartedly agree with Knifebaby.

“This was too obvious, we should have known it,” her voice is a little strangled and accusing, but her gaze isn’t directed at anyone in particular. She’s staring up at the ‘House of Mirrors’ sign as though it’s hunting her. “It’s like a fake signal fire, he lured us here, he _wants_ us to fail-… We have to go back to that guy with the eyes…”

“He didn’t say we were wrong to be here. Even if he had, he’s not a trustworthy source,” Newts is putting on a commandingly soothing sort of tone that makes me feel like I’m back in high school, and Baby’s shoulders hunch as she quiets.

“…We still also don’t have a plan,” I run a hand through my hair, gripping at the roots briefly and tugging like that will jump-start my brain into thinking more clearly. “This asshole didn’t say we weren’t in the right place, so…we keep trying to get in.”

“I admire your tenacity, little girl,” the Quest Master leans against the bars, holding the head of his cane the way he might cup a wine glass while the column sweeps back and forth like a pendulum. “How are you coming in?”

“I’ll climb the bars if I have to,” reluctant as I am to get anywhere near him, I take a step towards the bars and crane my neck back, trying not to look as intimidated by the height as I feel. The Quest Master laughs.

“I’d be worried about that drop, honey.”

Shit.

I’d been so intent on getting over the height that I forgot to even think about how injured I would be after a drop that’s…fifteen feet? Twenty? It’s looking taller and taller, every time I look up, though that has to be my imagination.

“That’s what I thought,” now he’s clicking his tongue, patronizing. “Now, are you going to keep complicating things for yourself, darling, or would you rather just come in through the front gate?”

“Why don’t you show me where it is, smartass?” I shoot back.

“You’re right in front of it.”

Already, a red flush is rising to my cheeks, but more in anger than embarrassment. I take a quick step back, appraising the towering iron poles for any sign that there’s an entrance in front of me, but I can’t see any visible gate. I scowl, “Are you just trying to mess with my head, or-…”

“Sweetheart, look _again_.”

I pause, eyes narrow and brow heavy. He’s chuckling soundlessly at me, still swinging his cane.

“…You’re right in front of me,” I sigh.

“Someone give the little girl a medal.”

“What do we have to do for you to let us in?” I demand.

“I’m the Quest Master,” the cane stops swinging and he tosses it upwards, gloved hand snatching it out of the air in a manner I can only call ostentatious. “All I ever want is to give you a quest. If you accept it…I’ll let you in.”

“What quest?” I try not to bristle. Hide how he’s getting to me.

“Do you accept?”

“Not without knowing what the quest is, I’m not stupid,” I jump visibly when someone’s hand brushes my shoulder, nearly giving myself whiplash with how quickly I jerk my head to look at who’d touched me. Newts immediately removes his hand, and I feel ridiculous for overreacting.

“Why not?” the Quest Master slips one of his cards out of his pocket, and the back immediately captures my notice. It’s a grinning jester face; not blank, like usual. “You either think you’re capable of completing the quest…or you don’t. Well?”

Hellblazer approaches the bars, now, looking ready to snatch the card out of the Master’s hand. He’s quick to pull the card back.

“How about _I_ accept, and the others wait out here?” If he’s trying to curb his hostility, he isn’t doing a great job of it. Then again, who the hell am I to talk?

“Blazer-…” Flower doesn’t look like she’s too fond of that idea, and the Quest Master laughs uproariously, like he just heard the best joke in the world.

“I’ll allow it,” he sneers. “You’d just have to disband your group… You’d be going it alone, honey, is that what you’d want?”

Hellblazer audibly grits his teeth. I back away a little more.

“You accept, and come on in,” the Quest Master purrs, “or you don’t. It’s a simple choice, my dears. What will it be?”

I can feel the glances being exchanged, and I think I pick up on every single one of my companions biting down on their tongues. None of them wants to be the one to offer us up for an impossible quest, not with so much at stake.

God damn it. I don’t  _want_ to be the one to have to step up to the plate.

“Alright, I accept,” I approach the bars again and ignore the sharp intakes of breath behind me. I can’t see the Quest Master’s eyes, but I try to meet them, straight backed and as unflinching as I can be. He holds the card between the bars, and I can see that the front of the card lacks the curly script that’s usually penned.

He lets me take it, and there’s something unnerving in the way his smile quivers. It’s as if he’s so excited, he can hardly contain himself. Stepping back, the Quest Master pulls at one of the bars, which clacks as though it’s been unlocked. He slowly wrenches open the doors, spreading his other arm out wide and aiming the cane towards the big top.

“Have fun exploring the carnival, darlings,” he announces. “Your first stop will be the Hall of Mirrors!”

Knifebaby blanches slightly. I flip the card to see writing shimmer into being.

‘ _New quest received: On With the Show. Pass through the Hall of Mirrors to make it to your performance in the Big Top!’_

“Performance?” I echo in a whisper, and look sharply over towards where the Quest Master is standing. Was standing.

“Where the hell-…” I half-stumble as Blazer’s shoulder checks into mine.

“We could have bargained,” he accuses bitingly. “You rose to the bait, we have no clue what this could do, or if it’s a waste of time…”

“If it were a waste of time, it wouldn’t be here,” I rub my shoulder a little, scowling. “That jackass _wants_ someone to succeed, and the quest description sounds harmless enough! _Someone_ had to man up and-…”

Something hard cracks across my jaw. I’m knocked flat on my back.

“What the fuck is your problem?!” Gunmetal shouts, helping to hoist me back to my feet. I’m a little dizzy, and I feel a hot rivulet slip from the corner of my mouth – I’d bitten down on my tongue. The entire lower half of my face aches.

Whiteflower rushes to me and is up on her toes to reach my face, her hand trembling as she lightly touches her fingertips to my cheek. I know she’s trying to heal me, but there’s no effect; the longer she fails to cast, the more violently her hand shakes.

“Blazer, why would you do that?” she turns, eyes wide like he’d hit _her_ , instead. Hellblazer half-turns away.

“Real men don’t hit girls,” Knifebaby is on my other side, nearly spitting. Newts isn’t saying a word, simply taking a potion from his inventory and helping tip it down my throat until the pain eases.

“Sorry,” he replies tersely. That sure as hell doesn’t sound sorry. It sounds more like he’s wrestling with the urge to punch Baby, too.

“It’s fine, whatever,” I shrug off their fussing and wipe the trickle of blood away. “Seriously… Tense situation, I shouldn’t have said that…”

“No, you fucking shouldn’t have.”

I’m not sure I heard Blazer correctly. For that matter, I’m not sure if he even spoke at all, or if I’d imagined it.

“Let’s just focus on this stupid quest. It seriously doesn’t sound that bad,” I kneel down to pick up the card – it fluttered out of my hand when Blazer hit me. Brushing off the faintly moistened soil, I read it aloud and jut my chin (my probably _bruised_ chin) towards the entranceway over the tent. “So we go through there, that leads us into the giant tent, and then we…perform, or something.”

Knifebaby is balking, and despite how irritating I find her, I indicate towards the others. “You guys go ahead, okay?”

“Bad idea, we’re not splitting up,” Newts shakes his head. “That’s never a good idea.”

“Just need to talk to Baby about something really fast, okay? Just hang around just inside the entrance, we’ll be right there.”

Newts doesn’t seem any happier with the arrangement, but he nods once and follows Blazer inside, Gunmetal talking in an undertone to a devastated-looking Whiteflower. I turn away from the others, just facing Knifebaby, who suddenly seems to be having trouble knowing where to direct her eyes. “Okay,” I keep my voice down, just in case anyone is lingering. “So what’s your issue with the Hall of Mirrors?”

“What – nothing,” she isn’t very convincing.

“Just out with it,” I insist. “Longer you stall, the longer we’re holding up everyone else.”

She gives me a dirty look. I guess she isn’t feeling quite as good about defending me to Hellblazer.

“…My dad lost me in the hall of mirrors, once,” she admits grudgingly. “He, uh…forgot me, and I was stuck in there until after the fair closed. I just don’t like the idea of getting lost.”

“Shit,” my eyebrows fly up. “That-… Man, that sucks. Nice dad you’ve got.”

“Yeah,” Knifebaby crosses her arms uncomfortably, bitterness practically oozing. “I’ll get over it, okay? I mean, we _have_ to do it, now. You accepted the quest, and Blazer’s right, that was stupid.”

She started off bitter and then happily redirected it towards anger at me. I know she has to be displacing a hell of a lot of rage, for her to agree with a man, even if he’s out of earshot.

“Yeah, we have to,” if I sound dismissive, I can’t care. Baby went from hooking my sympathy to irking me in the span of one sentence. “If we get lost, at least we’ll all be getting lost as a team. So, come on.”

I trudge over to the tent flaps and sweep them aside, half-expecting to see nothing but an empty space. Three sets of eyes (four, I assume, but I can’t really see Gun’s) flicker towards me. It’s startlingly dark inside, only the scarce brightness capable of permeating the cloth ceiling giving us anything to see by. Knifebaby slips through the makeshift door after me, and I hear her breath catch a little.

There are two passageways. The smooth walls of the entrance room form a hexagon, and the two doorways that lead further into the reflective maze are on opposite sides to each other. I swear under my breath.

“If you say split up, I’ll have to hit you, too,” Newts warn me.

“Anyone got a coin?” I suggest weakly. “Heads, we go right? Tails, left?”

“We have pieces of gold, genius,” Knifebaby grumbles. She looks about ready to pull a nervous rabbit and bolt out of the tent.

“Toss the card,” Hellblazer recommends. His voice is oddly subdued, and it doesn’t take a genius to know why. Flower is standing on the opposite side of the room, next to Gun, and I would bet money he’s regretting the violent outburst before.

“What – the quest card?” I withdraw it.

“Topside, we go right. The clown side, we go left.”

“…That makes more sense than anything I was thinking of, so here goes,” I balance the quest card against my thumb nail and try to flick it straight upwards. It shoots halfway across the room, instead.

The back of the card faces up, serial-killer smile leering up at us all. I grimace and go to pick the card back up, stuffing it back into my inventory and trying not to give too much thought as to where that is. “Alright – left it is.”

Blazer is nearest to that door, and I follow him with a cautious hand resting on the hilt of my knife, not sure what I’m expecting. Somehow, though, simple mirror-lined walls and cramped spaces are nowhere near as terrible as I’d been readying myself for.

I pass my top-heavy, warped reflection and have to pause for a moment, taking in the fact that I’m staring into an unfamiliar face that copies my every gesture and expression. I didn’t make her all  _that_ different from myself, save for some decidedly more female curves; her hair is similar to my own, sandy brown and set to the shortest default the game has to offer without having her head shaved. Full lips and fuller hips, little golden cogs creating makeshift chainmail over my leather armor plating, and the spandex-level clingy bodysuit that cuts off mid-thigh, leaving too much leg exposed to be practical but more than enough to be aesthetic – even distorted, I can find myself attractive.

…Just thinking that is _incredibly_ bizarre. Not that I don’t give other guys the occasional good ogle, but I don’t think too much of my male body.

I feel Newts collide with me before seeing him – I force myself to stop looking at my unreal reflection and murmur an apology, hoping he hasn’t realized exactly what I was doing.

“I know,” he pats my arm absently, giving his own reflection a sidelong look. “It’s weird for all of us.”

“Yeah…” my boots sink into the soft earth as I walk on, giving each mirror another passing glance as the corridor winds and the passage grows more and more confusing. I can hardly tell which passageways are new, what’s a vacant space, and what’s another mirror. If not for Hellblazer in front of me, I’m sure I’d have made a fool out of myself several times over.

Squashed reflection, where my avatar is only a foot high and expands another foot from side to side. Spindly reflection, where it looks like I’ve been stretched out on a rack. My reflection.  _My_ reflection.

The face I’m used to seeing, Alexander Heron, meeting my eyes with a confident smirk.

He has this look on his face, like he knows. Like he sees every failure, every dead end I’ve run into out-of-game…but he’s beaten them. He’s better. He’s smarter, and stronger.

I freeze in front of the mirror, and so does he – so do  _I_ . Slowly, I lift a hand, watching him echo it in perfect tandem. I think I see something at his wrist, but in the dark, I can’t make it out properly. It looks like a wire, or something thinner; I’m not even entirely sure I’m not just imagining it there.

Cautiously, I take a step forward. He does the same thing. I get as close as I need to, in order to inspect ‘myself’ – he still has that confident look on his face, like he’s  _better_ than I am. That can’t be true, though. We’re the same person.

Except for the long black wires, thin as a strand of hair, attached to every joint. He looks like a puppet on near-invisible strings. Unconsciously, I rest my hand against the mirror, unnerved. I want to snatch at the strings and snip them. I want to wipe that  _damned_ smirk off his face.

I know, somehow, that he isn’t  _just_ me. The Alexander Heron I’m facing doesn’t work a part-time job in a grocery store. He doesn’t get rejection letters from colleges – he’s already  _in_ college. Somewhere that boasts a reputation, probably, and he’s on the fast track to becoming successful.

I don’t realize that he’s reaching through the mirror until his fingers are already wrapping around mine, and they begin to squeeze.

He’s respected. He’s in control. He has  _reasons_ to be proud of himself, and the longer I look into my own eyes, the more I feel as though I’m paralyzed. Slowly turning to stone from the feet up, those thin wires – no, it’s hair, it’s strong, prehensile,  _actual hair_ – snaking over his hands, looping over mine and winding around my wrists. They’re pulling me in.

If I let myself be pulled… If I let myself become this ‘other me’ staring me down… I’ll be better off. I won’t be trapped in a nightmare, and I’ll have every reason to demand admiration.

His other hand is reaching for me, too.

I don’t know which possibility is worse; that he’s moving entirely independently, a separate entity and not only my reflection, or the truth. That I’m reaching for him, too. I  _want to be him_ .

“No-…”

I start to thrash. Something about that thought wakes up the part of me that can recognize danger. No, I can’t be him-… I can’t let him take me. I’m  _already_ him, but without the goddamn strings of hair crawling up my arm, skittering like long insects up my flesh. My breathing becomes ragged, and the ‘other me’ is laughing –

He’s looking more and more like the Quest Master.

“ _Fuck off!_ ” I shout. I have to focus, I have to get myself and everyone else out of here. I have a task. I can’t focus on how much better I _could_ be, I have to break free, I have to stop panicking – “I have better things to do…! I’m _better_ than you!”

In the split second before the image in the mirror vanishes, I think I see the strings on him pull taut.

My forearms collide with the reflective surface, chest rising and falling rapidly again. There is no image in the mirror at all, anymore – not of me, not of my avatar. Too paranoid to close my eyes, I hoist myself away from the glass and drag a hand down my face, then compulsively start checking for any of those long black hairs.

“…Fuck…” I breathe weakly, shoulders slumping in relief when I can’t find any. “Fuck…”

My relaxation stretches over the span of three seconds. That’s how long it takes for the panic to wear off, and for me to realize I’m completely alone.

“…Newts?” I swallow hard. “Gun?”

_Shit_ .

“Blazer?!” I turn sharply, only immediately seeing skewed versions of my avatar. The figures beyond the closest mirrors are indistinct, and the odd sizes and shapes make it impossible to tell whether it’s another version of me, or one of my friends.

My chest is feeling horribly constricted, panic spiking again. I’ve never been too anxious of a person, but I’m verging on a full-blown attack, feeling along the walls and losing track of which turns I’m making. Right. Right. Stumble as I hit a wall, and to the left.

“Flower, Baby?! _Newts, where the hell are you?!_ ”

“Wings…!”

I’m not immediately sure if I picked up on a faint whisper, or if it was screamed . I almost don’t hear it at all, over my pounding heartbeat and the incessant blaring of the carnival music, looping again and again until I think I’m going in circles – I’m disoriented by the sounds, the mirrors,  _everything_ .

But I hear it again. A male voice, so close by.

“Newts-…” my breath catches, and I stand still. He’s distinct enough, broad shouldered and in that flowing cloak – I can separate his reflection from mine, if I focus.

I scan each reflection, on a sharp lookout for Newts, in particular.

There. In one reflection to my right, he’s  _there_ , his back to the glass. I feel my way over towards it and sharply turn my head, expecting to see him standing opposite and more than a little thankful to be right.

“Newts!” I kick back some of the soil as I run towards him, but slow when I realize that the reflection he’s looking at is _off_. Indistinct and shadowed, all I can tell from where I stand is the expression on his avatar’s face – bitter, broken loathing.

My presence seems to snap him out of it, though, and he pries his eyes off the mirror, looking otherwise none the worse for wear. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I feel like the pale face and cold sweat are probably giving me away, but Newts is the type of guy who’ll humor me. “You?”

“I think I just saw the most twisted possible version of myself,” he mutters. “I did _not_ wear it well.”

I manage to laugh a little. “Think that’s the fucked up point of this place, maybe…”

“Right,” he’s tugging the cowl further over his face as he turns towards me. “No sign of the others yet?”

“No,” I grimace. “I’m not sure if we should look for specific people, or look for _everyone_ – I only found _you_ when I heard you call for me, and once I could focus on just you, it was a lot easier…”

“Two heads are better than one,” Newts makes to follow me. “This place can’t even be that big. It’s just confusing…”

“And dark,” I grumble. “Black, winding passageways. With mirrors. Whoever thought this was a good idea for a quest should be shot.”

“That’d be the Quest Master.”

“Brutally tortured, and _then_ shot.”

Newts pauses, the orb that he channels his magic through starting to take on a faint glow, the one that indicates he’s charging a spell. I stop immediately, grateful for the light.

“Careful,” I warn hurriedly. “Don’t actually set the place on fire, or anything. Although… After we’re out, I’m all for it…”

“I know,” Newts smiles wryly. “Don’t worry, I’m canceling the spell out before it casts and just charging it over and over again. Just lead me, I can’t see so well with my spell screen in front of my eyes.”

“Right…” I start to automatically reach for his hand, but falter and take his wrist instead. Despite gaming with Newts and talking to him regularly over the past month, touching is…odd. Probably because it feels too real, or maybe because neither of our bodies are. Not that he doesn’t _feel_ real, though; slightly warm to the touch, through his sleeves, not much in the way of hard muscle. It’s unnervingly sensible, that Newts is _built_ the way a mage ought to be.

I shake off my distraction and focus on the footprints I’ve been leaving, glad they’re so deep. The glow is helping me figure out which are overlooked passageways and which are truly mirrors, the shadows being cast a more helpful guide than I ever would have thought. I’m suddenly immensely relieved I found Newts first.

“Wait,” Newts murmurs, arm twisting a little to seize my hand. I almost compulsively jerk away, but remember myself and stay silent. He broadens, “I think I hear…”

A little vexed by the way he trails off, I keep quiet and try to listen more closely. It isn’t too far, I think, but it’s soft… An anxious little voice. Whiteflower.

“That way,” Newts holds out the glowing orb towards the source, and I’m quick to get us going again, tearing off in the right direction as much as the convoluted path lets me manage.

The choked sounds are getting louder, and I can dimly make out words. “…them stop… Can’t make… I c-can’t… …laughing…”

“Flower!” I shout out. I can see her, as I round a corner – she’s in a heap in front of the mirror, a trembling mess taking shallow breaths, and the seemingly-alive hairs coming from the mirror are steadily winding around the arm she’s holding out towards her reflection.

I lunge towards her, and forcibly pull her away. The hair doesn’t break; it slides, instead, leaving deep cuts in Whiteflower’s forearm. The razor-thin gashes seep blood, and she shakes harder, a quivering ball trying to huddle out of my arms. Newts has put himself between the pair of us and the mirror, only giving it a quick glance to check what I’m already sure of.

Whatever Flower had been looking at is gone, now. The mirror is blank, and the hair’s disappeared.

“It’s okay now,” I try to reassure her, hugging the unresponsive girl. “It’s okay…”

“Whatever that was, it can’t get you now,” Newts joins in with a more reassuring tone than I manage.

“I’m w-weak,” she still isn’t breathing so well, but the fact that she can form words keeps me optimistic. “I’m s-so w-weak, I should be-… I should be…”

I stamp down the part of me that agrees with her.

“No, sweetie, you’re fine,” I mutter. “Trust me… You’re fine now… We need you. We need you to be fine, okay…?”

Difficult as it is for her to speak, she manages to nod as I start to help her back up, exchanging a look with Newts. If it’s happened to all three of us, there’s an even greater rush on locating the others – while I like to think I don’t underestimate them for inner-strength, I’m well aware of the fact that I don’t really  _know_ any of them. Not really. I have no idea what they’re seeing, when they look into those mirrors.

If both Flower and I had nearly been taken in…

“If it weren’t a really stupid idea, I’d say we should split up to find the others faster,” I’m feeling cold, again, and the color that returned to my face is receding back to sickly white.

“That is a stupid idea,” Newts confirms, not exactly helpfully. I manage to curb my glare and keep my arm around Flower’s waist to help her put one foot in front of the other, providing my support just to keep her upright. One of her arms wraps around herself in a sort of masochistic hug, squeezing her own stomach. I don’t comment on it, focusing on lending both arms and looking sharply for any other distinct figures.

I’m not certain if it’s luck, that leads us to Hellblazer so quickly, or just another twist of the knife from whatever orchestrates the game. We only have to stagger through a couple of twists and turns before I spot him, and Flower’s knees quake as I’m forced to let her go.

Blazer is leaning heavily against the glass with his full body, staring into it with a defeated expression. It’s like whatever he’s seeing has sapped him of all his fire, leaving a shell of pain…and when he tugs his hand away from the hairs steadily encasing each individual finger, it’s only a little bit.

I bolt to grab him and pull him from the vision, but I can’t say for sure whether it’s my efforts or Flower calling his name that snaps him out of it.

I stumble, back meeting glass painfully, and cup my jaw as I’m struck yet  _again_ – Hellblazer had pulled away from the mirror and backhanded me on impulse.

“ _Shit_ -…! Wings, I’m sorry-…”

“It’s fine,” I hiss, inhaling and mentally bringing up my inventory screen again, reaching for one of my potions. “This is just becoming a thing we do.”

“I didn’t even see you. Fuck, you okay?” Hellblazer looks like a _wreck_. It’s like he suddenly hasn’t slept for days, and the guilt is almost tangible; I can taste the regret rolling about on my tongue as it sours the atmosphere. I cringe and wave a dismissive hand.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. So glad you wear armor on your hands, though. I seriously think you broke my jaw.”

I down the potion bottle, and Blazer starts to relax again, an arm wrapping around Flower’s waist automatically once she and Newts are close enough.

“You wouldn’t be talking so easy. God damn it, this is one fucked-up funhouse,” he growls, and it actually makes me feel considerably better to hear him pissed off. That’s a _lot_ more normal.

“So are you okay?” I let the empty bottle drop and feel over my jawbone again – the soreness is gone, but it still doesn’t feel right. Either the potions are losing potency, or they aren’t the miracle-cure games make them out to be. “We’ve got to find the others.”

“I’m fine,” he replies, and some of the hostility towards me, in particular, is back. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be fine.”

“Blazer…”

He pauses, and it takes everything in my power not to make a cliché whipping sound at how quick he is to curb his temper after just a word from Whiteflower.

“…I’m fine,” he mutters, calmer. “Do we know where the others are?”

“Not a clue,” I shake my head. “Not even sure how we got separated. Looked into a mirror, it tried to fuck with my head and pull me in, and then…the rest of you were gone. Did you move on without me?”

“What?” Hellblazer’s heavy brow creases. “No, I just saw that-…something in the mirror, and then…you guys came along.”

“Basically how it was for me,” Newts confirms. “It’s not just ‘something’ that I saw, too. I’m not sure if it was my worst nightmare, or...a better life, it was confusing.”

“Did it try to draw you in?” I’m not sure if I feel better or worse, knowing Newts saw the same kind of thing I did.

“No, I didn’t get that close,” he shakes his head.

“Okay… safe to guess that that’s what the rest of us are seeing, too,” I muse, thinking back to Knifebaby and feeling a sharp stab of guilt. Knowing she’s afraid to be in the House of Mirrors, to begin with – she has to be a wreck.

I’m tempted to suggest we look specifically for Baby, next, but have to ask, “Flower, does Gun have any deep-seated insecurities, or anything like that?”

She doesn’t answer. At least, not out loud.

I didn’t realize how many shades paler she was still capable of getting, and her eyes nearly take up half her face as she tears away from Blazer, taking off at a run.

“Fuck,” I breathe, jolted; Hellblazer is already bolting after her, and Newts doesn’t bother with the orb to light his way. No time. I dart by the mage and try to catch up to Flower, faster than all three of them.

“Gun…!” she’s screaming out louder than the music. “Gunmetal! _Ken!_ ”

“God damn it!” I swear loudly, trying to keep up with her – she’s quicker when she’s scared, taking erratic turns and ducking through paths that I can’t immediately tell are there. I think, though, that I glimpse the hulking silhouette about the same time she does.

He’s physically reaching into the mirror, grabbing at the thick tresses like they’re locking into a mutual embrace. Flower is begging him to stop, desperately pulling at his arms and nearly breaking down into another panic attack when the strands try to snake around her slashed arms, too.

Still bleeding – why hasn’t she healed them?!

“No, no, don’t, please-…”

“ _Leave me alone_ ,” Gun snarls, and it leaves me cold; I’ve never heard him take that tone with anyone, much less Whiteflower. It isn’t a yell, it isn’t empty rage – he sounds cold, and in control. Like he knows precisely what he’s doing.

I’m too small to be effectual. I know what has to be done.

“Blazer, _fucking tackle him!_ ” I shout as the warrior races past me, sheathed sword rattling as he charges Gunmetal down. The two of them grapple, Gunmetal able to match Blazer in strength due to sheer mass. Being torn from the mirror took a good chunk of Gun’s resolve, though – he isn’t fighting him off as viciously as he could be.

“Get the fuck off me!” he’s trying to lock one arm around the back of Blazer’s throat.

“Better you than Flower, right?” Blazer shoots at him.

“You _prick_ -…”

That jolts him the rest of the way; his anger has been redirected towards Hellblazer, personally, and the familiarity makes his grip slacken. Hellblazer keeps him pinned, breathing harsh. “You good?”

Gun’s head tilts back to look at Flower, both her hands covering her mouth and struggling to slow her breathing back down. “…Yeah,” he nods after a long couple of seconds. “Let me up.”

Blazer acquiesces, lending him a hand up and half-turning towards me. “So, now we look for Knifebaby. This place can’t be that much bigger, so probably not a hell of a lot more ground to cover before we find her. Right?”

“I think so?” I shrug weakly. “I swear to god, it mostly feels like we’ve been running around in circles and that _fucking music_ isn’t helping me think.”

It’s still going on, and on, a terrible drone in my ears. I’m not sure how I’m holding together even a scrap of sanity, with that blaring, dinky music  _still looping._

“We just…stay together, and try not to kill anyone,” I drive my palm against my eye, rubbing at it until it begins to hurt. “If we’re all calling out for her, shouldn’t take us that long… Before I forget, though – Flower, your arms?”

“Oh-…” she inhales, and looks down at the marks that were left. She closes her eyes in an attempt to focus again, get a better handle on casting, no doubt to the relief of everyone watching her.

Even that relief doesn’t last long, though, as we watch the deep scratches re-seal themselves in fast-forward. She makes a pained sound, shocked, the skin sewing itself without stitches or needles, pulling tautly closed and pushing more blood out with the speed it’s moving. All that’s left are angry red lines that I’m certain will scar.

We’re all stunned quiet, for a second, before Blazer and Gun both start towards her. Gunmetal gets there first, though – maybe Blazer didn’t try, as an apology for what he said before.

Everything I can think to say just doesn’t seem to capture how utterly screwed we are. Even the healing magic will hurt. It just fucking figures.

“…Knifebaby,” Newts breaks the silence, first, and it’s all the push we need. Like a slipshod army, we mobilize again, with me taking Newts by the hand this time to guide him as he provides the light.

“I have no clue how long it’s been, and seeing how bad it got for you, Gun – I have a _really_ bad feeling about her and that hair.”

“That was _hair?_ ” he sounds a little repulsed.

“Pretty sure,” I confirm, no less disgusted. “So, anyone have any brilliant ideas on how to cut down the search…?”

“…I might,” Gunmetal stops us and rotates his shoulders a little. “Depends – think these walls are very thick?”

I turn quickly. “Wait-…”

He bends his knees and slams his shoulder into one of the mirrors.

He works like a living battering ram. The glass itself seems thicker than the flimsy drywall and cloth, and he draws his sword to cut down what he hasn’t already smashed through. I release a breath I’d been unknowingly holding.

“ _Good_ thinking,” I probably sound impressed, and possibly a little envious – again, I’m cursing how I chose to build my avatar, feeling massively impractical and unhelpful, as a skinny thief woman.

“That hurt more than I expected it to,” Gun audibly cringes and lifts a hand to his shoulder as though about to massage it. The metal plating gets in the way, however, and he sighs as he lets his arm drop again. “Could probably do it a few more times, though… If I can even get through that hole…”

“Duck and squeeze,” Hellblazer leads Flower through without a second thought. The other side looks as same-y as everything else, but I at least can’t see any of my own footprints in the dirt. Lifting my head, I falter at every reflection of myself in which the distorted image makes my chest look bigger – Baby’s avatar isn’t terribly different from my own. Taller, more curvaceous, hair down to her waist and long legs… Alright, her avatar is actually _quite_ different from mine. Still, every reflection manages to throw me off and make me think, for just a second, that I spotted the last member of our group.

Gunmetal wrestles through the space and gently presses me aside, already determinedly crashing through the next wall opposite. Even knowing it’s coming, my heart skips a couple of beats. I’m too close by, this time, and I accidentally inhale a wad of dust and choke on it.

Through a groan, Gunmetal asks, “You alright? What happened?”

“Drywall exploding,” I wheeze, hacking into the crook of my arm and spitting on the ground. I feel a little better. “It’s cool, I’m fine. Keep going.”

The looming threat of losing one of our own keeps Gun’s hesitation short. He nods once and starts ripping the hole he made wider, giving us room to see past once the white powder and glass settles. There’s another hitch in his actions before he starts wrestling his way through.

“I think I see her!”

“Let me through!” I’m closest; when Gunmetal steps back a little, I slip through and let the others follow at their own speed. I can see her, too, standing perfectly still, staring into an empty mirror.

Her reflection is gone.

“Knifebaby!” I make to pry her away from it, and doing is unnervingly easy. She turns, looking at me with a sort of indifference that puts ice in the pit of my stomach. 

I glimpse movement that makes my gaze travel down towards her arm, and I try not to gag – it must have been my imagination. I desperately  _wish_ it was just my imagination, watching thin hairs wriggle, serpentine, into a hole they burrowed into her arm. Despite the dark, I can see thin little ridges, like veins, traveling up her skin, leaving track marks on her arm.

“…Baby?” I venture again, considerably more uneasy.

“I’m fine,” she answers what I hadn’t asked. As Newts gets closer, the glow from his weapon helps me watch those false veins presumably sink into the muscle, making them invisible. Aside from the puncture wound, there’s no sign anything happened.

I am most certainly going to be sick.

“Is everything okay?” Newts is being led by Hellblazer’s hand on his shoulder, and the light dies down.

“ _No_ ,” I interrupt preemptively. “Shit, Baby, what the hell-… Flower, can you use…I don’t know, healing spells, cure poison, anything?!”

“For the love of-… I’m not poisoned,” Knifebaby rolls her eyes. “I feel… _good_.”

I’m starting to panic, acting on impulse and grabbing at her wrist more abruptly than I should be. “We’ve got to do something about your arm. Whatever’s in you, it-… It’s not  _good_ , we’ve got to get the hair out, or…take the arm-…”

I have Blazer to thank, in a twisted sense, for the fact that I flinch. On reflex, the moment Knifebaby rounds on me, I jump back and clutch at the nearest arm – Newts catches me – before her swipe can make contact. My eyes go wide at the shimmer of steel.

She’d slipped daggers into her hand. She aimed to  _kill_ .

“Try it,” she hisses, but withdraws as abruptly as I did, jarred. Her eyes go wide. “…Oh, god… Oh, god, I didn’t mean to do that. I… Shit.”

I bite my tongue before I can recommend trying to take Knifebaby’s arm off, again. Something is starting to tell me it’s too late to bother trying to get those things out.

Not a single mirror is showing Knifebaby’s reflection, now. That  _could_ be making up a chunk of my suspicion.

“…We’re all together,” Hellblazer turns slightly, watching Gunmetal and Flower catch up the rest of the way. “That’s something. We get out of here, find our way into that main tent, and then what?”

“The quest says something about a performance,” I search for the quest card again, as though expecting it to have more written on it with this much having been accomplished. Of course, we have no such luck; it’s just as infuriatingly vague and deceptively innocent, the underlying horror of the message meeting my stare with a sneer.

For a moment, I swear that I’m not being metaphorical. Turning the card back around, the jester on the back seems to grin wider – taunting, like it’s won a contest I didn’t know we were participating in. On impulse, I ball my fist and crumple the stiff paper.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but as far as I’m thinking, our best plan is to either have Gun knock down walls until we _make_ an exit, or have Newts torch the place and hope we can outrun fire,” I admit. “So, I’ve got _basically_ nothing.”

“I could try to keep knocking the walls down,” Gun debates, but he already sounds a bit worn out.

“Think you’d die of exhaustion first, man,” I frown. “I mean, we could keep giving you potions, unless Flower’s got a good grasp on healing, now.”

“I do – I mean, I think…”

“You’re all being ridiculous,” Knifebaby sounds almost disgusted with us. “It can’t be that hard to find the exit.”

“I’d argue that,” I cross my arms, a little defensive. “I’ve been wandering around this so-called funhouse for what feels like hours – no sign of a way out, at all.”

She’s giving me a  _look_ , like she suddenly considers herself wiser in every possible way in comparison to me. “How about you let  _me_ find the way out, and if that doesn’t work, you can come up with all the dangerous plans you want?”

If I wasn’t so wary over what that living hair is doing under Baby’s skin, I might slap her down – either verbally, or otherwise, if she winds up pulling those knives on me again. It takes an impressive amount of self-restraint (and a healthy dose of self-preservation) to tighten my lips and give a little nod, instead. “Alright, then, lead on,” I grit my teeth a little.

With a smug sort of look, Knifebaby flips her long ponytail over her shoulder and starts off in a direction that appears random to me. She does so with confidence, though, and I have to admit that’s something I don’t have.

I let the others follow close, hanging towards the back, where Newts is currently bringing up the rear.

“Hey,” I whisper at him, drawing his attention immediately. Catching onto the fact that I’m speaking in hushed tones for a reason, he only nods and raises a quizzical eyebrow.

I don’t bother with delicate phrasing; I have concerns, and I have to voice them to  _someone_ . “I don’t think we can trust Baby, anymore,” I try to lower my tone in pitch, too, aware that my female voice will only carry better if I don’t. That maddening music hasn’t stopped, making it difficult to hear me at  _all_ …but given the nature of what I have to say, I wouldn’t mind having to repeat myself.

“She’s acting…a bit off, but given the situation...” Newts begins in an undertone.

“She doesn’t have a reflection, anymore, and the hair? I think I saw it go into her arm,” inadvertently, I get a little louder due to the growing apprehension swelling in my throat. “We don’t know what she saw, in the mirror, but…I think it got her.”

Newts is silent for a second, and still mindfully keeping track of the others ahead of us. I’m grateful, because I’m far too scattered to pay attention to so many things at once. Manually breathing, urgently voicing my worries to Newts, that  _blaring music_ that’s wrestled a grip around my brain stem and is  _shaking_ it… All those things are tearing at my focus and tempting me to simply fall to my knees and give up.

“…We should keep an eye on her,” Newts finally agrees, though I know the ‘but’ is coming before he can even voice it. “She’s still an ally, though. Give her a bit of the benefit of the doubt.”

“But, whatever the hair and the mirror did-…”

“Was probably ill-intentioned, I know, but we need to keep our friends close until we know for _absolute_ certain they’re an enemy. ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ exists for a reason.”

“Pulling those daggers on me looked pretty guilty,” I grumble.

“I wouldn’t say that’s enough to condemn her,” I can actually hear the beginnings of a smile in Newts’ voice. “Most of our party members have attacked you, today.”

“Only _two_. But, I guess you’re right…”

“I usually am.”

Every lighthearted turn to the conversation is appreciated, in all honesty, and I manage to crack a smile back. With the situation weighing on me like a leaden blanket, just that tiny reprieve helps my lungs feel less constricted. Newts rests a hand briefly on my shoulder, either to bolster the bit of relief he’s given me, or to steer me around the corner.

I’m still not paying as close attention as I should be, now that the responsibility isn’t falling directly to me. Ahead of us, it’s becoming just a little brighter. I think it’s my imagination, or (the dread is back in an instant) that the sun is beginning to rise, outside, and the pale rays are breaching the cloth roof.

The worst part of it all is, we’re approaching the source of the music. My heel of my palm grinds against my ear, trying to stifle the sound at least a little – I have no clue how it isn’t driving the others as insane as it’s making me, but I’m feeling incredibly jealous of them, right now.

Knifebaby calls back towards me, directly, that superior tone too big and boastful for the cramped hallways. “Didn’t I tell you?”

I almost prefer the music to Baby’s voice, come to think of it.

To my chagrin and vindictive pleasure, though, Baby guides us out of the corridor and back into a hexagonal room. Familiar plain walls and  _the exit_ , as welcoming a sight as aspirin after you’ve suffered a headache all day. However…

“Isn’t this back where we started?” I accuse. “If we go back out, we’ll just have to go through the Hall of Mirrors again, until we reach the Big Top entrance.”

“The rooms just look the same,” Knifebaby snipes. “I know what I’m doing, Wings.”

“We don’t have time for the two of you to bitch,” Hellblazer includes himself in the snapping war I’d declared and marches over to the tent flaps at the exit. “Whether it takes me outside or not, all _I_ care is that it takes me the fuck out of _here_.”

He has a point.

Irritatingly, though, when he pushes the flaps aside, I see that Knifebaby was right. I can feel that ‘better-than-thou’ look digging into the back of my head as I catch up to Blazer and walk through, but I ignore it to stare at the enormous arena we just wandered into.

We came through an entrance way up in the stands, the theater positioned dozens of feet below, which defies everything I know about how the Giver’s Square is built. It’s like the Quest Master’s pedestal expanded, made into a full stage, and the weight of it caused the ground below it to sink. There isn’t a single person, in the audience… no NPCs, no players, and that smirking bastard is nowhere in sight. The only living figure we  _can_ see is that of a woman, indistinct from where we are, standing right in the center of the stage.

Recklessly, Knifebaby takes a step down into the stands, apparently about to head down towards the arena without a second thought. I nearly grab at her again, but instead hiss, “ _Knifebaby_ . What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to complete the quest,” she shoots me another ‘Are you stupid?’ look. “There’s a stage. We have to ‘perform’. _Obviously_ , we have to go down there.”

“And _obviously_ , there’s someone else down there who could be – what, an NPC? Another player? A monster? We don’t know!” I scowl. “So _hold on_ a second, would you?!”

“If you could still use your arrows, I’d say fire a shot down there and see what happens,” Gunmetal thinks aloud.

“Newts and Flower are better with their magic,” Hellblazer points out. “I don’t exactly do this kind of heavy lifting, either, and I’ll be fucked if you regularly smash through walls. Maybe it’s just…practice.”

“Longer we’re stuck in this place, the easier it is,” Newts echoes, and then nods at me. “I think it’s worth a try. You don’t have to hit her – if anything, you probably shouldn’t. Just shoot.”

No pressure.

Knifebaby is still watching me, like she’s expecting me to fail. Newts looks as encouraging as he can, with his face partially hidden, while Blazer looks impassive, and Flower has such unflinching hope that I feel like I’d be kicking an injured puppy, if I fail.

No pressure whatsoever.

I unhook my bow and reach back clumsily for my quiver, fingertips snatching at the fletching and drawing the arrow out with the grace of a drunk. Every fumble is twice as awkward, and I’m tempted to snap at them all at tell them to stop  _staring_ so intently. I clear my throat slightly, uncomfortable and hoping they’ll take the hint. If they do, they choose to ignore it.

Without the faintest idea how to do so, I try to tighten the bowstring and nock the arrow. I decide to consider the fact that it doesn’t immediately fall away from the string an accomplishment, in and of itself.

I just have to pull it back…aim…and let it go. Well, step one is complete. ‘Aiming’ surprisingly isn’t as daunting as the idea of letting the arrow fly, though; possibly because I can practically see it, in my mind’s eye, just clattering to the floor the second I loosen my grip.

God, that would be embarrassing. I hope my imagination isn’t prophetic.

I squint one eye, try to keep the arrow straight as I tilt it downwards, and shut my eyes as I let it go.

I hear it land a few feet ahead. It skitters over the carpeted stairs, the sound so loud it actually manages to overtake the carnival music for a few moments.

“…It’s okay,” Newts reassures me, and I’m grateful that the first thing I hear isn’t a derisive snort. “It’s taking us all a while to warm up to this, and archery is tricky…”

“You do archery?” I ask, not sure if I’m impressed, hopeful, or let down that someone might be able to give me pointers.

“No,” Newts shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t have a clue how to do it. Does anyone else?”

God bless him, he’s looking right at Knifebaby when he says that. She doesn’t respond, either, which is helping me nurse my bruised ego back to its former (not exactly outstanding) glory.

Down below, the woman hasn’t even looked towards us. She’s still just standing there, not doing much of anything, turned away from us – her hair is longer than Baby’s, flyaway strands more discernible the harder I look. It almost looks like she’s in a frayed, aging wedding dress, judging from the long train. Everything about her is setting off uneasy triggers in my brain, numbing my tone as I say, “Nothing else for it but to just…go down there. There are no other ideas…?”

Either I managed to come off as more confident than I truly am, or the others are stuck in the same mental ditch. No one says a word, and finally, Knifebaby takes another step down the carpeted stairs.

It’s about now that I realize that the music is getting quiet, fading gradually into silence. I can’t tell whether or not that makes me feel better.

Fearless though she may seem, Baby isn’t descending so quickly that I can’t catch up to her. As we near the stage, the woman begins to sway and gesticulate in flowing motions, one hand drifting towards her face and resting there – even with the back of her head to us, every gesture is so exaggerated that I can tell with near-clarity what she’s doing.

When the silence has finally fallen and the last grating note stops ringing in my ears, I consider calling out to her. However, it seems we don’t have to try to get her attention, anymore.

A mask is in her hand, as she pulls it away from her face, and she slowly turns her upper body to look towards us. I recoil a little.

Everything that  _should_ make her beautiful is too much, and grotesque. She’s rail-thin, like she’s had her organs cut out or packed into as confined a space as she could fit them – something’s sucked the meat and fat right out of her, leaving her with repulsive proportions that has me cringing more than once. Her lips are bloated, too full, and the rest of her skin is pulled too tight over her face. It looks like she tried to pull at her eyelids to force their slanted shape into something rounder, but there isn’t any elasticity in her skin to allow it; the result are little rips at the corners of her eyes, irises pitch-black and cold, like a void. She doesn’t look  _real_ .

She  _isn’t_ real. She’s just part of the game. No doubt in my mind that she’s a monster.

The woman is a monster, and I’m just  _standing here_ . Stock-still, frozen, trapped in those eyes of hers. It actually feels like she’s ensnared me with a gaze and turned my feet into lead.

“Shit…” I hear Blazer growl, behind me, and know that whatever has happened, he’s in a similar predicament. I have to fight hard just to crane my neck and look away from her, but I manage to wrestle my eyes away to look back towards the others.

They’re all wearing a deer-in-headlights look. Do I look like that, too? Are they all seriously  _stuck?_

Slowly, the feeling is returning to my feet. I try to keep my head down and not watch the woman directly, but the rustle of her long train sweeping the ground has me watching just a little. I don’t let my gaze go anywhere near her upper body, watching just her feet.

It’s hard to tell, given how long the dress is, but…it looks a little like she’s having trouble moving her feet, too. I glimpse bare toes, slick and sticky with  _something_ . I nearly choke – I don’t need to know what it is to think it looks disgusting.

“Are you here for the performance?” she asks imperiously. I don’t know why I expect her to sound any less human than I do – Lagorio sounded enough like a regular man, albeit an asshole. Her voice is a little raspy and worn, but normal. That actually makes her all the more unnerving.

“That depends,” Newts – bless his quick-witted brain – responds before I can babble something. “Do you mean to watch, or to participate?”

I chance a glance up to see she’s looking straight at Newts, now. My stomach flips a few times nervously. She sounds distasteful, as though she’s calling him stupid without directly coming out and saying so, “We’re sold out, tonight. Where would you expect to find an empty seat?”

Just to confirm I haven’t missed something, I scan the empty seats in the audience. Not a single one has a body. Apparently, none of us are dumb enough to try pointing that out, though.

“We’re actually not here for the performance,” I turn my head sharply before speaking, and – though I’ve never been superstitious – cross my fingers in the hope that I haven’t just destroyed our chances of completing the quest. The deformed woman is coming towards me, and I hear the suction of her feet lifting off the stage floor. She is definitely standing in something viscous.

“Then why are you here?” she asks suspiciously.

“We, uh… We just need some of your hair,” I swallow hard, and eye the flyaway strands. She’s awfully close, now, and her hair is all over the place. Long, thin black wires that are reacting to the static in the air, like every individual strand has a mind of its own. Exactly like the hair that attacked each of us.

I curse myself hard. If only I thought to just grab some from when it was trying to attack me, I wouldn’t have to ask – or, maybe if we can somehow pull it out of Knifebaby’s skin… Slit open her arms along the vein and go fishing around for-…

I’m making myself sick. I want to deny to myself that I even started to think that way.

“My hair?” the woman laughs. In contrast to her croaking, the laughter is…pleasant. Sweet, like the sound of a bell. Without knowing why, it nearly wrests a giggle from my own lips, but I bite back on the laugh before it can escape. The situation calls for severity. I am afraid to laugh.

There are little staggered exhales, huffs and snorts behind me, like the others are clamping down on the exact same feeling as I am. Trying to get out my next sentence, though, I don’t think anything of it.

“Just a bit of it?” I ask awkwardly. “We just need it for…this thing… It’s not like you’d miss a couple of hairs, right?”

I’m inwardly begging her, unashamed, hoping desperately that we won’t be pushed to a fight. If things were like they used to be, when I knew that I’d only have to release an arrow and it would hit the target, every time… I could deal with the varying damage and the risks of combat.

I have no idea what  _she_ is capable of, but I know  _we_ aren’t an army. If I can just talk her into it…

“My hair is very precious to me.” She walks past me – again, that faint slurping sound of sticky skin peeling away from the floor is my only tip-off, because I’m so determined not to look at her. “You would need to offer me something of equal value. Or, perhaps…do a favor, for me.”

That sounds like a better offer than trying to kill her.

“You’re obviously a very reasonable woman,” Newts is buttering her up, I think. “What kind of favor are you looking for, miss-…?”

“ _Miss?_ ” she snaps; either it backfired, or Newts hit on a sensitive subject. “I can no longer bear to _be_ a ‘miss’…!”

The latter. Oh god – what if she’s about to ask one of us to marry her? I eye the graying dress with more trepidation, now.

Will she ask to marry  _Newts?_

“The _favor_ I ask is to rob me of the title, ‘miss’,” she is stepping off the stage, approaching the male avatars – I can see, now, what she’s been walking in. Thick, gooey bile is left in her wake, sliding out from under her dress.

Both Newts and Gunmetal recoil, and it doesn’t take much observation to gauge how tense Hellblazer now is. Slowly, I begin reaching for my quiver again.

“ _Mrs._ Gemma,” her bony hands run across Newts’ chest as she passes him, and the other reaches out. She’s cupping Hellblazer’s face, and staring right into his eyes – he’s frozen, practically turned to stone.

Gunmetal has to grip Flower’s shoulder to keep her back. As quietly as I can, I nock the arrow.

“I’ve a husband-to-be that I’d like you to go find,” the monster, Gemma, is almost whispering. Her face is close to Hellblazer’s, both hands gripping his jaw now and cutting crescents into the skin with her long fingernails. Whether it’s panic, revulsion, or sheer disbelief (and I wouldn’t blame him for any one of those things) a derisive sort of snort escapes him.

She freezes. Even the static-wild strands of her hair appear to stop moving.

“Are you laughing at me?” she asks dangerously. I think I hear a quiet, squeaky whimper escape Whiteflower.

“…No,” Hellblazer has to fight to turn his head, I can tell – the muscles in his neck are bulging, having to struggle so hard it must be painful, turning his head towards Flower. “I’m laughing at whatever poor fucker proposed to you.”

Gemma lets him go as though stung, one hand going to her chest like he wounded her. She’s turning away from him, and I can see her face in profile – hastily, I try to hide that I had an arrow pointed at her, sure she can see me peripherally. Her lips are trembling badly, though…

Knifebaby steps towards the monster with a look of pity on her face.

Then Gemma starts to laugh uproariously, and the sound isn’t like chimes this time. It’s a deep, harsh chortle, more forceful than the last, and we’re laughing with her. Every single one of us, I can tell, is just…laughing, non-stop, splitting our sides and constricting our lungs because it’s being forced out of us.

In a wild, writhing mass, her long hair lifts and twists like snakes.

Hellblazer hits the floor barely in time, and I can tell…it is  _exactly_ like the hair from the mirror. Razor-sharp, slashing the side of Blazer’s face – she’s rounding on us,  _all_ of us, and the gleeful screaming from the stands can’t be real. There aren’t any people in the audience.

Yet they won’t stop cheering. They won’t stop whooping, and catcalling, like the show they’ve been waiting for has finally begun.

‘ _On With the Show: quest completed.’_

The notification is there only for an instant. What a fucking accomplishment.

Hellblazer forces himself back up to his feet, smoothly lunging forward and grabbing Whiteflower, urging her to run. Gunmetal sidles in the opposite direction, trying to draw Gemma’s attention on himself – it makes sense, he’s covered in armor, but it still makes my stomach lurch nervously.

Gemma is howling, her hair slashing at Gunmetal like thousands of thin knives. Behind her, they’re winding around Newts’ legs, jerking them out from under him.

“ _Fuck_ …!” I dash forward – either I’m not paying enough attention, or Knifebaby isn’t, because two throwing knives whizz past my chest and nearly run me through. “ _Baby_ , what the _fuck?!_ ”

“Stay down!” she calls back angrily. “I’m trying to cut the hair!”

Newts is hissing, robes askew and pant legs cleanly torn through, as is his skin. The orb starts to glow, too, and he manages to grit out, “Wings, get back and don’t help me!”

It’s in my best interests not to protest. I scramble back as he lets loose the flames, and Gemma is shrieking. I exhale hard, the sound becoming another unwilling guffaw halfway up my throat. A hysterical response, maybe, because I have no idea why I'd be laughing.

Naively, for a second, I think that we stand a chance at fighting her, thanks to Newts’ magic. Further evidence that I've lost my mind. Then her hair snaps up and viciously shakes, practically throwing the embers off – burning bits of hair rain down against the seats, and the people who aren’t really there start crying out in pain.

Grabbing Newts, I start pulling him back, stumbling as I help him scramble up. He’s swearing under his breath, so am I – Gunmetal’s armor is being chinked away at, hair steadily beating down on him and cutting through it.

Hellblazer’s left Whiteflower at the top of the stairs. She’s screaming out something, fighting with herself over whether or not to follow; he charges back down towards us, slamming into Gemma and knocking her back, massive sword drawn, clashing his blade against hundreds of skinnier, sharper weapons.

Their names. Flower is screaming Blazer and Gun’s names. Sometimes mine, too, I think, but tinnitus blares in my ears from the high-pitched scraping and clanging. I know for certain, though, that I hear her yell to Newts, right before the wounds on his legs start pulling themselves closed. He hisses, doubling over and clutching one of the seats for support – it’s hurting him, but he’s healing. All I have to do is stay between him and Gemma.

The hair-monster is preoccupied with the assault she’s under, giving us precious seconds, but I know that won’t hold for long. Knifebaby can’t seem to get close. Those throwing knives are all she has – but how does she even have them? She threw them, and they were still lying uselessly on the floor…

And here I am. Just standing uselessly off to the side, unable to do much more than stare with my mouth hanging open in a gape.

I see a spray of blood, and I’m not sure whose it is.

Snatching an arrow again, I pull it back with the bowstring and let it fly towards Gemma.

It whizzes by her face, but it’s sent flying as it collides with hair – it managed to cut through a few individual strands, but the tresses fanned out and made a wad of themselves, too strong for a little arrow to break through. Like anxiety hitting after the fact, my hands start to shake so hard I nearly drop the bow.

How in the  _hell_ did I manage that?

I didn’t hit her the way I hoped, but she turns towards me with her mouth wide open, her laugh more shrill and hateful – oh god. Oh, god, I grabbed her attention.

It’s giving Gunmetal time to recover, blood spilling from where the metal has been beaten down against his chest. Blazer is ragged, just as stained with a contorted expression as the wounds take on a glow and heal at ten times the speed. Gemma walks towards me, hair draping down her front to guard her chest, the rest of it – how does she even have  _so much_ of it – poised like serpents about to strike, and she pins me with that gaze. I can’t move.

“ _Wait_ …!” I let the bow drop, clamp my hands over my ears to drown out her laughter. “Stop! Stop – what if we find your husband?!”

Gemma stops her advance, and I feel like time slows drastically. She purses her lips, considering me aggressively, and I’m nearly certain that she’s only pausing to watch me squirm. Playing with her food, in a sense –

I regret thinking that.

Behind her, Blazer starts to raise his sword, readying to bring it down on her head. My eyes widen, and I try to shake my head imperceptibly. If she notices… If he does it… If it  _doesn’t work_ … She will kill us.

Blazer doesn’t see me trying to stop him. Lucky for me, Knifebaby slides in front of him, arms lifting to catch his wrists before he can crash the sword down.

Gemma keeps regarding me, and finally speaks. “You’ll find my fiancé for me?” She sounds angry, suspicious. “ _Drag_ him to our wedding, so we can be together at last?”

“Yes!” My shoulders slump a little, but I’m no less tense. “We’ll find him for you, we’ll bring him back here-…”

“No,” she snaps haughtily. “To the church, you idiot. You’ll find him, and have him meet me at the church. Or else…I will track _every single one of you_ down, and paint the floors with you.”

I swallow hard, but nod. Whoever she’s marrying hopefully can’t be any more brutal than she is – there is just no way to get close enough to even  _hit_ her, and we don’t even know if she’ll die the way a human would…

The church. That’s in the east part of town.

“Do you know where we can find your…fiancé?” I falter over the word without knowing why. My knees bend slightly, the hold her eyes have on me lessening a little as she starts to look away.

“To the south, in the factories,” she informs me. She’s starting to sound almost pleased, turning back towards Hellblazer and Knifebaby and looking at the pair of them hard, instead. Blazer’s sword has been forced away from Gemma, but his posture is still hostile, glowering at her with chilling hatred. She’s smiling a little, now; I can hear it in her voice. “I’ll expect him before the night is out. If you do this for me… I will give you my hair.”

As she speaks, she twists two long fingers around a thick strand of it and combs them through, removing a slip of white from the mass of black. She flicks the card towards me, prompting the ‘new quest’ notification sound to ring in my ear and the text to flash in front of my eyes.  _‘New quest received: Vows. Join the bride and groom in holy matrimony, before sunrise.’_

I pick up my bow. I’m having trouble swallowing past the lump in my throat.

The south, at the Smoke Stacks – that’s a player-versus-player zone. There will be other people, there. People liable to attack us.

This is a  _terrible idea_ .

“I’ll be so grateful that it won’t even attack you, once it’s severed,” Gemma turns back towards me, and the tilt to her lips is genuine. In an odd way, it almost makes her honestly pretty.

I shudder and try to keep my eyes off her.

“ _Go_ , now,” the genial expression drops, and like her voice physically pushed at my legs, I stumble over the first stair, bolting back up to the entrance we came in from. Flower is waiting there, and the others are at my heels, each one battered and pale. Even having escaped being directly part of the fray, Whiteflower has clawed at her own face so badly that she left bleeding red scratches down her cheeks, dry flakes of skin caked under her nails.

“Teleportation spheres,” Hellblazer mutters, the moment all of us are in earshot. “Who’s got ‘em?”

“Flower and I have a few,” Gunmetal replies stiffly. “We can share…”

“I have _one_ ,” Knifebaby crosses her arms, and I’m not sure whether she’s lying so she doesn’t have to give away anything, or if she’s just feeling particularly emphatic. The rush of panic and adrenaline is throwing me off, making it difficult to read into much of anything properly.

I’m already forcing my inventory screen open, blinking repeatedly at the disorienting window blocking my vision. Teleportation spheres… That’s right. I have four.

I take out two of them, the weight of them  _odd_ , in my hand. It feels like holding a thin glass case, something gelatinous and weighty inside – I can feel it move against the fragile shell as I roll it in my hand.

“I have no idea how these are supposed to work,” I mutter, handing the second sphere off to Newts. He holds it up, inspecting it critically with an expression that perfectly echoes how I feel.

Hellblazer accepts a sphere from Whiteflower, and I catch the prolonged moment where their hands meet. So does Gunblazer, and he shoulders his way between the two of them.

“To get to the Smoke Stacks… Maybe we just…think about them?” Newts hazards a guess, but looks doubtful. “Unless it’ll be like before, where a screen comes up asking which direction we want to travel in – if we can see our inventory screen that way, there’s a precedent to consider…”

Whiteflower looks fairly listless, bringing her sphere close to her face. “How do we even use it, to begin with?” she asks softly.

She has a point. Double-clicking them certainly isn’t an option…not precisely, anyway.

“I don’t know,” I sigh, and on impulse, squeeze the teleportation sphere.

In my hand, the glass splinters apart… And I swear that I do, too. Every part of me that could possibly be split into pieces is torn from my core, and I scream.

All I can see is a swirling rush of disorienting color, and the text screen reads,  _‘Now loading: The Smoke Stacks.’_


	4. Chapter 4

Being reassembled is actually worse than being split apart, molecule by molecule. Experiencing being unmade was traumatic. Being hyper-aware of the reverse is-…

Well, I suddenly understand why babies come into the world with their eyes screwed shut and screaming.  _Sensation_ against my oversensitive nerves is horrific. The movement and the binding of my clothes, slight friction as it is, feels like they’re setting me on fire. Something has whipped my skin raw until it’s shedding right off, and then started rubbing rough cloth against it – I cry out, wanting to keep still to escape the pain, but I can’t stop twitching and writhing. My body’s reaction to the pain keeps up the torture.

When it finally starts to die down – maybe I’m just becoming numb to it – I become aware that I’m blind. I shut my eyes tightly, scrunching up my entire face and huddling into myself, trying to escape the light. Every flicker of the warehouse lanterns spit embers into my eyes, embers as bright as the sun. I can’t see, and don’t want to. I just want it to end.

Every heartbeat is a horrible, echoing pound against my ears. The others are screaming too. They’d followed suit.

It’s my fault they’re in this much pain. It’s my  _own_ fault for doing this to myself. I may not have known what would happen, but everything that isn’t making me feel sick to my stomach simply has no place in my head.

I have no idea how long we’re lying here for, twitching and jerking. Eventually, I begin to see again – spots, at first, the light bruising my pupils through my eyelids. My skin isn’t quite as sensitive; numbed, like a brand that’s healed over. I open my eyes, pushing myself up off the cold concrete ground.

The factory was made, I think, primarily as a battleground. There isn’t much of interest, inside, just a wide space with scattered crates of fuel, the box lids on some cracked open while others remain firmly sealed and prime for climbing and ducking behind. There are ladders leading up to a wide catwalk that go around the walls, and the rafters of the ceiling are so high up I can hardly see them. Lanterns dangle from them, though, on rope that has to be ten feet long. There are many, and they glow too brightly, still…but I adjust.

It looks like the others are at about the same stage I am, getting up and staggering, or kneeling on the floor until their heads stop spinning. I clutch at one of the crates until I can move my head without feeling like I’m about to pass out, my voice sounding entirely foreign to my own ears – understandable, as it  _isn’t my real voice_ – “Everyone in one piece, or what…?”

“They’re okay,” Hellblazer’s voice is rougher, tired. I glance back to see that he’s helping up Newts, over-large sword sheathed at his back and Whiteflower balancing on one of his arms. Knifebaby looks resentful – he probably tried to help her up, too, only to be rejected – and Gunmetal…

Shit. His armor is half-destroyed and crushed, and he lifts himself up enough to take a health potion from his inventory, raising his face plate just enough to be able to drink. He’s probably in more pain than the rest of us.

Flower is watching him, too, looking devastated. I lope over, unsure if I should offer to help. Before I can even ask, though, he grunts, “No. Just leave me alone for a minute.”

“…That pressure is only going to get worse,” I point out.

“I have back-up armor, in my inventory,” he sounds strained. “Lower-level and not good for tanking, but it’ll be better than this…”

“Are you even going to be able to get that off?” I argue. “Really not the time for modesty, that’s not even your real body.”

“ _Wings_ ,” he snaps. “I don’t _care_. I’ll deal with it myself, okay?”

I lift my hands in surrender and don’t press it any more, not so clueless that I can’t tell when I’m stepping on a sensitive issue… Even if I can’t wrap my head around what it is. Gunmetal finds somewhere to seclude himself, behind the large crates, and I hear the creaks and groans of his armor as he wrestles out of it.

I am pretty sure some of those sounds are Gunmetal, himself, but I try not to listen.

“So, is it just me, or does anyone else find it odd that there’s no one in here?” Newts fails to sound casual, and since he pointed it out, I can see why he’s nervous.

“…PvP zone, there’s usually loads of people around,” I swallow hard, and begin approaching the factory doors. Newts moves forward to catch my arm warningly.

“You’re not going _out_ there…”

“Just taking a quick look,” I deny. “Maybe there are people out there, instead…”

“Then you probably really won’t want to let them know we’re in here,” Newts points out. “What about the windows?”

“Too high up, unless we climb up to the catwalks… Got to admit, not liking the idea of going up a ladder when my legs still feel like they might break.”

“Well,” he sighs, “I’ll go. Anyone else feel like taking a look?”

He hasn’t even finished getting out the sentence before Knifebaby starts hauling herself up the nearest of the ladders. I roll my eyes, but I’m not much better, quick to follow anyway. I cast a quick look back at Newts. “I’m expecting you to catch me, if my legs give out or snap off or something.”

“You’re going up ahead of me?”

“Unless you’re okay with me looking up your robe,” I grab the metal rung and start climbing, not looking back to see how Newts reacted. Pulling myself up onto the catwalk, I grab hold of the railing and move aside to let the dark mage follow.

Baby is already staring out the window, face impassive – that doesn’t fill me with confidence. She moves over without needing to be asked, as I approach, making way for the two of us.

I can’t be ashamed of myself for balking. I already know what I’m going to see, and I don’t want to see it. I wonder if it’s too late to go back and face Gemma.

Outside, it is a  _slaughter_ .

All of them are players. People. The majority out there are already dead. Just outside of the factory alone, though, there are at least thirty people still standing, still trying to murder one another in a panicked frenzy.

Newts has a hand on my lower back – at first, I think it’s a comforting gesture, but I realize a split-second later it’s because I essentially backed into him, stepping away from the gory war outside.

“What do we tell them?” I ask numbly, keeping my voice to an undertone.

“We can’t exactly _lie_ and tell them everything’s fine,” Baby snaps. “We won’t be able to even leave this place without getting murdered…”

I hate that she’s right.

“Let’s just…go back down, and tell them as calmly as we can that we should…wait it out,” Newts mutters.

“We can’t _wait it out_ ,” Knifebaby pulls away from the window and speaks as one might talk to a five-year-old. “This is time sensitive, unless you forgot? We take too long, and someone else might get the key before we do – someone might’ve _already_ gotten the key, or at least some of those body parts, or _something_ …!”

Behind us, there’s a faint clatter. Knifebaby shuts up.

The three of us turn, and I unconsciously nock an arrow, wary. I almost feel ashamed for it, until I see that Newts has his orb at the ready and Knifebaby is sauntering forward, light on her feet, ponytail swinging over her shoulder.

There’s more movement, rustling from behind a flat crate set against the railing. Knifebaby glances back at us, and I nod once, stepping in front of Newts to guard him. He’s better with his magic than I am with my arrows (I still couldn’t remember how I fired one properly, in the first place) but it still takes him those few seconds to warm up a spell.

Baby slips into stealth mode, becoming little more than a shadow, and catches the girl around the waist before she can run by her.

She’s slight, boyish, her face oddly overcast – not a real person, I’m relieved to observe, but an NPC. Bizarrely, considering most NPCs have hair of fairly neutral colors, hers is a mess of purple stuffed under a gray cap. She thrashes, trying to throw off Knifebaby’s grip, crying out shortly and twisting her arm to try plunging a stunted knife into her assailant.

“Get _off!_ ” she howls, struggling. “Get away! I didn’t do anything!”

“Stop-…” Knifebaby starts to let her go, grip slipping, and then the girl barrels right at me with knife extended. Alarmed, I try to aim the arrow, again – have to actually hit, can’t let it just fall, how did I do it last time-…?

I hesitate for too long. The arrow drifts away from the bowstring, and the girl tackles into me knife-first.

That feeling I had, before…the oversensitive sensation of fire and pain, over my skin. I feel that inside, like it’s been shoved into me. The cold metal is a sharp and terrible distinction; if Newts didn’t catch me, I would have fallen straight down.

“ _Wings!_ ” I hear footsteps at a run, followed by Hellblazer urging Whiteflower not to run up here. I press my hand against the bleeding hole as hard as trembling allows, and the NPC girl looks nothing short of terrified. She half-throws herself towards the railing, trying to get around me. She gets tense when she sees our healer ascending the ladder.

“No…!” She points the bloody knife towards her. “S-see, she’s the flower! She’s the flower, not me! _Leave me alone!_ ”

“Newts – paralyze her, do something!” I hiss. There’s an idea behind his eyes, the orb taking on a bright white glow.

The NPC girl cries out, ice catching her leg. I tense, surprised; the ice forms a jagged block up her calf, freezing her to the floor in a way that doesn’t seem realistic.

Then again, we are in a game. It’s still only a game. Things like  _magic_ still work the same way.

The girl doesn’t let go of her knife, brandishing it wildly. She looks like a caged wild animal. “Don’t do this,” she begs, and pulls so hard at her frozen leg that I think I hear something faintly snap. “You don’t have to do it. Please…?”

“Why the _hell_ did you stab me?” I growl.

“I just… I just had to defend myself,” her face gets very red, straining and pained. That snap I heard hadn’t been my imagination. “I don’t deserve this… None of us do, b-but you already _have_ a flower. Not me…don’t, to me…”

Unnoticed, Whiteflower has reached the catwalk and runs over to us to worriedly inspect the damage. The girl fights twice as hard, chest rising and falling fast.

Then there’s a terrible noise of tendons being twisted and pulled, the bone breaking as she jerks too violently. She cries out, wheezing and clutching at the handrail, knuckles turning white –

The rest of her body turned, but her foot and broken ankle are still frozen in the same position.

I can’t tell who screams. Honestly, it might have been me.

She broke her own ankle to lunge for Whiteflower, catching her by the hair and dragging her close enough to cut through the front of her robe and start slicing skin, over her heart. It’s as though she’s trying to reach the life-pumping organ.

Hellblazer followed her up to us. It’s obvious, that he would, but it still catches me entirely off-guard when Newts and I are thrown to the side, hitting the wall. The hold over my knife wound slips, more blood gushing free; I choke, and Newts winds both arms around me, applying the pressure I can’t.

I wish the pain had blinded me. I would have preferred that to watching Blazer’s sword rip through the girl, the force driving her back. Flower falls, limp as a rag doll, and…in contrast, the other girl is still fighting. Pulling back and screaming until the blade slits her from stomach to throat, the sound withering to a wet gurgle.

She’d cracked the ice, at last. Or, maybe it just melted enough that her efforts finally amounted to something. Bent so far back with her cracked ankle freed enough, gravity pulls her over the side.

The body hits the smooth stone ground below, and leaves a terrible, cold quiet behind.

“…Flower-…” Hellblazer lets the sword fall and drops to his knees beside her. From below, Gunmetal’s heavy footfalls are audible, as is the sound of retching.

“ _What happened?!_ ” he shouts up towards us. “Flower?! Is she okay?!”

“She’s fine,” Blazer responds, and it’s too quiet and too shaken to be a lie for anyone else’s benefit. “Flower, come on-…look at me…”

Her eyes are still open, her lips still moving. Not dead yet.

“…Potion-…” Knifebaby sounds numbed, still.

Hellblazer is already removing one, his arm wrapping around her back. Flower’s head lolls backwards, close to unconsciousness. “No, come on, stay with me-…” he pauses and tears the cork from the bottle, clenching it between his teeth and spitting it out, tipping the potion carefully past her lips. “Swallow-… God _damn_ it-… Flower, you’ve got to heal yourself…”

There’s a commotion going on, below. Someone running – Gunmetal’s steps would have been louder, but they’re fast to follow, and there is shouting…more yelling, a voice too deep to be familiar.

I haven’t been conscious of the fact that Newts is doing something similar with a flask, opening a health potion for me and pressing it into my hands. “We can’t lose you both,” he mutters, voice an octave higher. ‘ _Both’_ .

Is Flower seriously dying? …Am I dying too, then?

The health potion numbs the pain and slows the bleeding, a healthy dose of relief being swallowed along with the thick tasteless brew. It’s easier to think and breathe, and I sit up a little, stronger.

Flower isn’t having the same luck. Whether she’s too weak to swallow it, or the damage is too extensive…she needs something stronger than a potion.

“ _Shit_ ,” I breathe, getting to my feet. Newts rises with me, looking to be at an utter loss, and Knifebaby sinks against the railing helplessly.

On the ground floor, Gunmetal is yelling, “There’s someone in here!”

“Oh my god, oh my _god_ , don’t kill me-…”

“He’s a healer!”

Whiteflower’s entire body twitches.

Hellblazer’s head lifts, and he snarls back, “Don’t kill you?!” He almost starts to lift Flower, then shoots a look of hatred towards the ladder. “ _Gun!_ Send him up, no weapons, we need a healer  _now!_ ”

I think I hear Gunmetal mutter a threat, and I turn my head, picking up my bow from where I’d dropped it. The glow at the corner of my eye means Newts is arming up, too, and when the stranger gets to the top rung of the stairs, he finds three sets of weaponry aimed right at his face.

I’m not honestly sure the person  _is_ a ‘he’. Purposely bizarre, I’m sure, and unrealistically pretty, he could pass as a female avatar. Almost definitely a girl, in real life; guys  _never_ make their male characters like that. His short hair is as close to white as the blond tones allow, skin too dark to make the contrast remotely realistic. He blanches, freezing at the top of the ladder with a sick expression, and quickly glances back down.

The bottom clearly isn’t any safer. Gunmetal is there, re-armored and holding out his sword despite that the healer has disarmed himself, brandishing it as a sort of reminder that he’s defenseless. He shuts his too-pale eyes briefly, biting down on his lip to keep a whimper stifled.

“No one will hurt you, got it?” I don’t sound reassuring, but I’m not really trying to. “You help our friend, you walk away with everything intact.”

I can certainly talk big, despite having no idea whether or not I can even attack properly.

…Threatening an unarmed guy – _girl_ , probably, playing as a pretty boy. What the hell am I even doing?

“Can you let me up?” his voice is too deep to suit him, especially when it’s so nervously small. I nod, stepping back to let him up. Whiteflower is still alive – I only know because she’s making faint sounds, as though trying to talk.

“Help her,” Blazer growls. “ _Now_.”

“I’m not very practiced yet-…” he stammers.

“You help her, or we kill you,” he doesn’t have the patience for any preemptive excuses. Flower is running out of time, fast. The stranger nods jerkily and sinks down beside the two of them, muttering anxiously under his breath and getting his hands to glow before she can lapse into unconsciousness.

I wish they would let her just pass out. I cringe as she jolts, her wounds stitching, and she’s screaming as though being tortured. Gunmetal is shouting something below, prompting Newts to descend – he shouldn’t have been left alone down there, I realize too late. It has to be tormenting him more than I can even comprehend.

She is healing, I remind myself when she grabs at Blazer, holding tightly, legs thrashing. This is a  _good thing_ …

It seems to last forever, though.

The other healer pulls bloodied hands away, trembling about as violently as she is. I take a step towards them, catching the movement of Blazer’s hand smoothing Flower’s skirt back into place, preventing it from riding further up.

“You’re okay,” he mutters. “Keep breathing…”

“…Nn…” it’s an affirmative sound, but whatever word she’s trying for dies before it can leave her lips.

“She’s okay?” The healer starts to pull back, tears spilling over shakily. “Thank god.”

Hellblazer looks towards him sharply. “What were you doing in here?” he questions tersely. I’m a bit taken aback on behalf of the new guy that he isn’t even being thanked, but apparently he’s too traumatized to care.

“H-hiding out. I’ll just keep hiding in here, I don’t want any trouble, I won’t attack anyone…!” he edges back towards the railing, feet slipping against the melted ice. “The other players out there nearly killed me. They killed-…” his voice breaks, and he swallows visibly. “They killed the rest of my party. This quest, not being able to get out of the game, it’s made them all f- _fucking_ crazy.”

“…M’sorry,” Flower manages weakly. “You…okay?”

He stares at her for a moment, then lets out a bark of disbelieving laughter. “I am  _so far_ from okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she shuts her eyes tightly, and I wonder why she’s apologizing as though she was responsible. “I’m sorry…”

“…Not your fault,” he deflates a little. Blazer is staring down at her again, brushing her bangs away from her face.

Knifebaby makes a sound of disgust. “So, are we killing him?” She hasn’t lowered her knives.

“No,” Blazer mutters. “Go back to hiding if you want, I don’t fucking care.”

The stranger lets out a weak, relieved breath. Knifebaby only looks even more displeased.

“Hold on.”

Both of them look towards me sharply, daring me to tell them we should kill the healer instead.

“We should…bring him with us,” I look towards him, then at Flower again. “Shouldn’t we? Two healers are a lot better than one, what if-…”

I don’t want to say ‘What if this happens again’, and I don’t need to. The prospect doesn’t seem to sit much better with the pretty-boy healer, though.

“Look – you’re going to die if you just stay here on your own,” I point out. “If we send you a group invite and you come with us, we’ve got an extra person to cover our back. We finish this fucked up quest, get the key to the city, unlock the door… Forget all this ever even happened. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Whiteflower sits up carefully, clutching at her chest with a pained look on her face. Hellblazer follows her every move, and from the set of his jaw, I know what judgment he’s made.

“…Fine.”

“We can’t _trust_ him,” Knifebaby scowls.

“We can trust him if he’s in our group,” I counter severely. “Same goals in mind. Getting out of this place alive. Right?”

“I-I, I don’t know if I can leave here,” the stranger stammers. “It’s-…”

“More dangerous waiting around to die in here,” Blazer finishes flatly. “If you’re alone, you might as well just run yourself through on my sword. Quicker than any other death you’ll get.”

Whiteflower isn’t looking up, loosely clinging to Hellblazer’s arm, but she lifts her head enough to briefly lock eyes with the stranger. He stares, choking lightly on a sob.

“A-alright, yeah,” he inhales deeply. “I’ll go with you. I mean, can I go with you?”

“Not sure how to send an invite, like this,” Hellblazer grumbles to himself, looking sharply at Flower as she starts to stand, testing her own strength. “What’s your name?”

“It’s L-… Oh, uh, Silversun,” he mumbles.

Hellblazer is quiet for a moment, then growls in frustration. “Damn it. I don’t fucking know if just  _saying_ you’re part of the group is going to work, but…fuck it, that’s the only thing I can figure out how to do. So, you’re in.”

Silversun nods nervously.

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?!” Gunmetal sounds panicked. “Flower…!”

“I’m okay…!” she calls back quickly, hand pressed to her chest, still. Quiet, she says to Silversun, “Thank you…”

“Yeah,” Hellblazer nods brusquely. “Thanks.”

“Uh, no problem…” Silversun looks to be on the brink of an anxiety attack. Knifebaby continues to glare daggers at him, even less taken with the idea of an outsider joining us, but she doesn’t argue aloud. I follow them all down, dropping off the last couple of rungs and trying not to look towards the corpse.

Silversun doesn’t seem capable of taking his eyes off her. “Her name was Iris,” he says hoarsely. “She told me. She was…helping me hide, for a little while. But she’s just an NPC…”

The words are little digs, pricking at each of us and driving into our skin like needles. I shudder, and catch a glimpse accidentally.

The impact practically blew her chest open, where she’d been split. The mass of gore makes my eye twitch and my stomach cruelly convulse.

Gunmetal tries to cover Whiteflower’s eyes too late. She takes a step towards the body, utterly perplexed. “Why is her-…? She was actually a flower?”

I think, as one, we all falter. She’s walking towards the corpse without fear, now, kneeling briefly to reach into Iris’s chest.

“What do you m-…” I trail off, hesitating. “What do you see?”

“…What?” She glances back at me, then towards Gunmetal, eyes growing wide again. She’s cupping the girl’s heart in her hands, the organ no longer beating, but I swear I could feel a _pulse_ from it from where I stand. “It’s a flower. A b-bloody flower.”

My lips move soundlessly. She looks down at the heart, a bloody mass of oblong muscle, then towards Gun again. She’s uncertain and faintly pleading, terrified of the answer but needing to ask.

“…It is a flower…isn’t it?”

I lie before someone else finds they can’t.

“…Yeah, sweetie,” I help her up, avoiding touching her bloody hands. “It’s just a flower.”

From the corner of my eye, something flashes, distracting enough to blind me briefly. A quest update notification –  _‘Darling Valentine: one of four flowers obtained.’_

I guess the others saw it, too. There is a ripple of unease from all but Whiteflower, who seems further reassured. Silversun mutters about an unfamiliar quest. If anything good has come from this, then, we know for sure he’s joined our party, if he’s seeing  _our_ progress.

“…Here, I’ll take it,” I cringe at the thought of touching the organ, but Hellblazer is staring at me with an absolutely unfathomable expression, like he can’t decide whether to tear my throat out or thank me. If I’m playing along and trying to protect Flower, _someone_ else has to hold onto…that.

What if she starts seeing it as something other than…what she sees it as?

Blazer, thankfully, shoulders me aside slightly and takes the heart instead before anyone can say a word about it. His fingers twitch slightly, and he turns away from Flower quickly, ensuring she doesn’t catch the way his lips curl in disgust. It vanishes, once he puts it in his inventory.

“That’s done,” he says curtly. “So, anyone have any brilliant ideas? The ‘husband’ should be around here.”

“Husband?” Silversun echoes, clueless and overwhelmed.

“I think there’s a basement that you can get to from the underground,” Newts looks pensive. “We could probably avoid all the fighting outside, going through the sewers to the east…”

Knifebaby makes a distinct sound of disgust.

“I’m all for that,” I’m trying to look anywhere but at the corpse on the floor. It isn’t working. “Better that than walking into a fight.”

Or ‘clusterfuck’, more like.

“That’ll work great, if we can get to the basement. Where is it?” Hellblazer turns to Newts, unofficially appointing him the guide. Judging by his surprised expression promptly turning faintly ill, he isn’t exactly thrilled about the burden being shifted onto him.

I want to say something falsely reassuring, like, ‘No pressure’, but considering everything at stake it would come off as laughably hollow.

“Okay,” he mutters, voice faintly muffled by the cowl. “I haven’t used the underground passageways to get _here_ very often, but… I think the stairwell is inside one of these crates.”

“Inside, as in under it?”

“One of them should be empty,” Newts expands. “We open the empty crate, which won’t have a bottom – it’s over a trapdoor. Through that, we find a ladder going down into a tunnel, and the tunnel is our way out. If memory serves.”

He sounds uncertain, and while he probably remembers well enough, he might be like me and is harboring an uneasy feeling that the game’s changed it. Once he’s within reaching distance and meets my eyes, I give his arm a slight squeeze and hope it’s somehow reassuring.

“Alright. We should all stay in sight, start checking different crates. Stick with someone, though, two at a time,” Blazer says. Both Gunmetal and Silversun start speaking up in protest.

“Flower’s with me.”

“There’s seven of us, am I supposed to hang around on my own?”

“Go with Gunmetal and Whiteflower, then,” he growls at Silver. He recoils a bit, but nods – just glad that he isn’t being implicitly left on his own, like he thought. “I guess I’ll go with Knifebaby-…”

“I’d rather go with Wings,” she argues. I’m glad I don’t twitch.

“Having the two rogues pair off doesn’t make sense,” Blazer rolls his eyes. “You can go with Newts, then, I’ll pair off with Wings.”

“I’d really rather not,” Baby’s tone is more clipped with each word. I bite back my scowl, but can’t do the same for my exasperated sigh.

“If we go fast, fighting won’t be an issue and it won’t matter who’s with who,” I try to do the mature thing, even though I would prefer pairing off with Newts. Baby’s avoidance of the male avatars is grating on me more viciously than usual, though. Maybe it’s because this isn’t a good fucking time for her to be _picky._

I have to fight the strong temptation to tell them all I’m actually a guy. Hyper-aware of the temper tantrum that Baby would throw over ‘being tricked’, I hold my tongue.

Hellblazer and Newts head to the crates stacked nearest to the doors, while Gun leads his group of three towards the back to fan out there. I don’t waste time, starting to climb up onto the nearest one, not noticing right away that I am a lot more dexterous in my avatar’s body than my real one. I’m not sure if that’s just part and parcel of being female – a benefit no one knows about, maybe? – or if I’m finally starting to adapt to the game.

Knifebaby makes to follow as I pry up the wooden top. We can probably eliminate any of the boxes already open, I guess; from what I can see from where I am, the open-topped crates are all full of  _something_ or other. My eyes catch on Iris’s body as they skim the factory again. An involuntary spasm grips me by the spine.

“What’s wrong with you?”

If Baby aimed to sound concerned, she massively overshot and hit ‘condescending’ instead. I briefly entertain the idea of shoving her off of the crate she’s climbing up onto.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” I let the crate lid drop – it’s heavier than I anticipated, especially with my own weight pressing down too, and prying it up makes my fingers cramp. Full of black stone, by the looks of it; good for crafting, useless otherwise. Especially useless, right now.

I hop from one crate to another, hating that they’re varying sizes as the taller edge catches my foot, stubbing my toes with a loud  _bang_ . There goes my theory that I’m getting better at this.

The next crate, and the next, and the one after, are all filled with various junk. Knifebaby is already losing patience, and looking across the factory floor over towards Newts, it doesn’t appear as though they’re having much luck, either.

They aren’t moving as quickly as we are, though. They keep pausing, looking warily towards the doors, probably each keeping a paranoid ear pointed in that direction.

“Hey…!”

Flower calls out, her voice breaking a little as though unused to being pushed to that volume. Silversun is more vigorous in getting our attention, deep voice booming as one arm frenetically waves.

“We found it!” he shouts. “Big, open trapdoor, like you said!”

Newts turns, half-crouched on top of one of the crates. He leaps down with impressive grace, Blazer wrenching his sword from where he’s jammed it under the crate lid like a lever.

“About time,” Baby huffs. Why she’s sounding so superior, I don’t know; she could be on the insufferable side on her better days, but everything out of her mouth is taking me further and further aback. I physically shake my head to shrug it off, bounding down to the floor and hitting the ground running.

Alright,  _that_ is something I normally wouldn’t have been able to do. It’s a very slight bolster to my confidence, but a bolster, nonetheless.

I feel like the dead girl’s eyes follow me as I run by her.

Gunmetal is thoroughly taking the wooden planks apart, destroying the crate piece by piece – probably in order to get through to the trapdoor, himself, since he’s too large to climb. Newts looks like he’s just let out a breath he’s been holding, but still doesn’t look exactly ecstatic.

“What’s wrong…?” Silversun’s face falls. “This is right, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Newts draws his weapon out, wary, “which is why I’m a little worried about the part where the trapdoor is _open_.”

That is…an unnervingly good point.

The worst part, for me, is that I’ve unconsciously developed a streak of bravery I’m pretty sure hadn’t been there, before. Before I have much of a chance to curb the impulse, I step forward to approach the gaping square hole that’s probably only barely big enough to allow Gunmetal through. Kneeling down, I narrow my eyes and peer into the darkness, somehow expecting to see more than just the ladder leading into the depths.

“What do we do if someone’s down there?” Silversun frets. I can actually hear the squeak of his teeth rubbing against his lower lip, as he nearly chews through it in trepidation. I shrug.

“I don’t know, roll over and ask them not to kill us?” I drone. “Man, we’ll deal with it. We can’t _not_ go down there, though. If we stay up here, we’re definitely dead. Whereas, we go down there…”

“We’re only _possibly_ dead,” Gunmetal finishes dryly. “That’s really comforting, Wings.”

“I’m doing my best here,” I sigh. “So, are we all heading down, or what?”

“Should be lanterns down there, but I should still probably go first to light the way,” Newts holds the orb aloft and moves forward. Frantically, I hold up a hand and catch his robe before he can get much further.

“Hey, whoa, no. You want to climb down a ladder _one handed_ and _blind?_ Not happening.”

“If I don’t, we’ll all be heading down blind,” Newts argues.

“…Um-… I have an idea…?”

The pair of us look towards Whiteflower. Hellblazer and Gunmetal are already staring at her like men obsessed; that’s nothing new. Her knees actually tremble a little, when we look her way, and I feel a surge of sympathy.

Well, sympathy, and exasperation.

“Newts could light the path from the top…? And, someone else could go down there, get one of the lanterns, then give us some light from the bottom…”

“Sounds…slightly less dangerous,” Newts concedes. Whiteflower relaxes, a little. Silversun, on the other hand, tenses.

“But, for whoever goes down to the bottom first – they could get killed-…”

“It won’t be you,” Hellblazer irately interjects. “You need to stay up here as our back-up healer. Should be one of the rogues – if you hear anything, you can slip into stealth mode.”

“I don’t know about Baby, but I haven’t exactly mastered this whole rogue thing.”

Ah, goodbye, courage. It’s been interesting trying to get to know you.

“I don’t trust Newts,” Knifebaby pipes up bluntly, arms crossing. “He’ll lose the light, or drop it, or something.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” Hellblazer shoots Baby a look of absolute disdain, but apparently doesn’t want to take the time to argue – every one of us, save for maybe Silversun, knows how pointlessly bull-headed Knifebaby can be. He’s looking to me, and if I pale a little, no one is cruel enough to point it out.

I wonder how to lure the bravery back. Seduce it, maybe, with promises I half-intend to keep… Maybe a bribe…

“Just keep absolutely silent,” Newts advises me privately, looking about as enthused as I feel, worry knitting creases into his brow. “If you hear _anything_ , come back up, quickly. You’re light on your feet – you can escape, and I’ll cover you. I won’t let anything hurt you, alright?”

I nod a few times, though the withering of my masculinity isn’t helping that whole ‘bravery issue’. Slowly crouching by the ladder, I lower my legs down the first few rungs, the leather of my boots giving enough to cushion the sound. I exhale a little; I somehow expected to sound…well, exactly as  _I_ would have, climbing down a ladder, and not my avatar. I may not be a big guy, but my real feet are flat and heavy. Graceful, I am not.

I knew I should have chosen to be a damned warrior class character…

Newts is practically lying on the floor with the glowing orb in his hands, lowering it enough to illuminate the way down for at least a few feet. I’m not sure how far it goes down, but it feels strangely like it’s too late to ask. Looking straight down into the murky dark, I take my time descending, every breath even and measured.

I don’t hear much of anything. The distant trickling of water – expected, from a sewer – and the too-realistic smell of refuse and decay clogs each nostril offensively. Preventing myself from gagging becomes the greater challenge, and every time I think I might cough or heave, I have to choke it soundlessly down. It’s almost  _sour_ , the reek, and every bit of oxygen I take in feels congested by something like smoke. I can only guess as to why it stinks the way it does; maybe the twisted fuckers who made  _The Free Realm_ ‘real’ only knew to throw every foul stench down here, possible, without knowing what a real sewer is like.

If I can be thankful for anything, it’s that I’m past the darkness. The torches are nowhere near the ladder (poor city planning, I note, as though it matters) and once I get past the horizon of the ceiling, the light travels from afar in all directions.

They’re fairly high up the wall, but not completely out of my reach; a lucky thing, I think to myself again. If they sent Whiteflower down here, the petite avatar wouldn’t have even been able to brush the bottoms of the open-topped lanterns with her fingertips.

The sewers here are no different than the ones beneath the Square. Different shadows, maybe, but roughly as intimidating as anything beneath a manhole should be expected to be.

No people. That’s the heftiest weight off my shoulders.

I pry free one of the torches with some difficulty, admittedly needing to hoist myself to the tips of my toes just to wrench one off the wall. The little flame is rocked so badly as I fight with it that it nearly goes out, inspiring a note of frustrated panic. I take in a deep breath when I manage to get it free.

I regret it.

While I gag and struggle to focus on anything but the reeking taint burning my nose, it hits me that I have to signal the others. We hadn’t devised any kind of call, and I doubt we have the ability to send things through personal message, now. We still need to speak the message aloud…

Maybe if I just stand directly by the ladder, Newts will see it. He probably banished the spell, by now, and could see again. I could wave my arms around, do some sort of distinct motions to let them know it isn’t a trick of the light, or lack thereof.

I turn back towards the ladder, and the flickering light illuminates a dark wall I haven’t paid nearly enough attention to.

It isn’t the sewer I smell. It’s  _that_ .

So black it blends with the dark, shadowed walls. A hulking, dripping, reeking beast of bile.

It huffs at me, and the torch slips from my grip and smashes on the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

Slowly, thick fingers spread apart with a disgustingly slick sound. My head is spinning, and the headache I’m developing stuffs my head with wet cotton. I hack into my arm – wet, heavy coughs, and stagger back as it lurches towards me.

“Wings?!” I think I hear Newts yell. I can’t quite tell; the pressure in my head spreads to my eardrums.

“Oh, god,” I wheeze, ankle catching on something that isn’t there. I stumble, swerving my torso, back hitting the wall. I’m grasping for a weapon without knowing which one I want – the bow, or the knife? The bow. I want the bow. I don’t want to get close enough to that thing, to knife it. So, the bow.

I can’t use the bow. I’m a terrible shot, and what good is an arrow going to do against  _that thing?_

The others aren’t as quiet as I was, as they come down the ladder. I think they’re in a panic, hastening down, maybe thinking I’m already dead. Nice of them to come for me anyway, I think grimly, instead of shutting the trapdoor and sealing it forever. They could have run for their lives.

…Right, though – where would they run?

My mind is racing, and the beast is still just…standing there, arm outstretched with dripping fingers. I’m going to be sick.

The glow is coming down first. He’s heading down blind, and leading the way. If he turns too late, or in the wrong direction-…

“Wait!” I shout, clearing my throat with speech instead of clogging it with vomit. “Newts! Monster!”

The glow fades, and he’s shushing the others – so they’re all coming down? I bite back a weak laugh. Even though I’m probably a bastard from thinking so, I honestly didn’t believe they would all come for me. Hell, Silversun hasn’t even been part of the group for more than five minutes.

…Why the _fuck_ is the bile beast still just _standing there?_

I see the bottom of Newts’ robes, and so does  _it_ . It’s reaching towards Newts, now, with a low snarl that doesn’t sound right. It isn’t animalistic; it’s worse than primal. Demonic, like the sound of a living being’s bones being grated apart.

“Holy shit,” he hisses, and pushes off the ladder. He falls flat on his back, a safe distance out of its reach. The impact startles me out of the anxious haze I’m in, and I quickly rush forward and haul him up by the arm.

“It’s not coming this way,” I inform him quickly. “No idea why.”

“…Is it being held back by something?” Newts brushes himself off, and even with the cowl I catch his wince. He has to have hurt himself more badly than expected, with that fall…

Almost automatically, I open my inventory and pass him a health potion. I only have about twenty left… God, am I ever thankful I stocked up. I’m almost as grateful for the potions as I am over the fact that calling up my inventory screen is becoming second nature.

“I don’t think so,” I take a wary step back and call up towards the others, “Watch your step, there’s a-…a thing-…”

“They’ll need light,” Newts grimaces past the potion bottle, and I dash back to wrench another lantern off the wall. I can’t hear the creak of armor past the low, ungodly snarling, and have to blindly hope that the others have enough sense not to descend until their way was lit.

_It_ still isn’t getting any closer.

Hellblazer’s feet hit the ground, and that’s when it acts again. Reeking talons swing at him, nearly catching in his hair – Blazer retaliates.

My reflexive yell falls on deaf ears, and the large blade sinks into the brute’s shoulder.

It sticks.

The black slickness over stiff, curdling flesh glues the weapon to its body. There is a stomach-turning squelch, as Blazer tries to rip the sword away, staggering back when it refuses to budge; his grip gives before the sword does, and he gracelessly buckles before the beast.

A bulky arm catches Hellblazer at the waist and hauls him back before the creature can tear through his armor like tissue.

Gunmetal leaves him winded, but saves his life. I don’t think the realization is lost on Blazer, either.

“…Shit,” he wheezes, and it sounds like a ‘thank you’.

The beast is still again, regarding each of us as the last pair of feet hit the stone ground and joins the conglomeration, seven sets of wide eyes (an assumption I’m making when it comes to Gunmetal’s hidden face) fix on the thing.

“Guess Medusa has even more questionable taste in men than _it_ has in women,” Newts’ voice shakes a little as he attempts to diffuse the tension, but the unnervingly serpentine hiss from Knifebaby is a heavy tip-off that the attempt has fallen flat.

“You mean-… You think this thing is her fiancé?” Whiteflower blanches.

“Have you seen anyone else around the smoke stacks apart from murderous avatars? Share with the rest of the class,” my voice has an edge to it that I don’t mean to temper it with, but despite her flinch, I can’t muster any guilt. I don’t have the patience to coddle her, and none of us have the time.

We implicitly only have until sunrise.

“So who has any ideas on how to take this fucker to church…?”

The eyes round on me, and it takes me aback slightly when I notice how hostile the stares are. Hellblazer and Silversun, in particular, are glowering like I’d just spewed a slurry of insults directed at their mothers.

“My sword’s still stuck in it,” Blazer is speaking in a growling grumble. “Could grab the end like a fucking freak handle.”

“Smart,” Gunmetal dryly interjects. “Who wants to get close enough to it to do that?”

“You’re sturdy,” Blazer shoots back.

“Maybe we just ask?” Whiteflower’s voice is an octave higher. “Tell it – him – that we’re here to help with the wedding…?”

Naïve.

“If it hasn’t skipped off to say its vows, it’s probably not that eager to get married,” my teeth grit together slightly.

To my immediate irritation, the beast takes a lumbering step forward at last, a squelch of suction suffixing every step.

“…Fine then,” I seethe a little. “We head to the church and it follows, and we try not to get our faces raked off. Questions? Comments?”

“Cut the sass and let’s go,” Hellblazer snipes back, turning briskly on his heel to lead the way. It leaves a ripple of indignation in his wake – he’d been disarmed, and he sure as hell wasn’t stepping up as a ‘leader’.

I should be in front, I decide. In front, and as far away from the lucky groom as possible.

He slows to remove a second sword from his inventory, giving me the opportunity to shoulder past him. He doesn’t gripe about it, to my shock. I half-expected him to backhand me again, and I’d almost been steeling myself for it.

I have my knife in hand. I’m goddamn ready.

Instead he takes up the rear with the others, and the almost-instantaneous argument that sparks up tells me why.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Staring at her. Do you think you’re subtle?” Gunmetal spits.

I bristle outwardly. Whiteflower.

It is always Whiteflower, with those two. She’s their darling.

Even though they’ve probably never even met her, in real life. Despite the fact that she’s slow on healing spells, wasting our time casting spells on strangers, gasps and trembles like a child and gets away with it because of her pretty little avatar.

“Fuck off. I’m not staring at anyone,” Hellblazer’s volume is raising and echoing off the sewer walls, getting louder to combat the thunder of Gun’s footsteps.

“You know exactly what you’re doing, and I told you to _stop_.”

“Ken,” Whiteflower’s feeble interruption is steamrollered.

“Make me, cocksucker.”

“ _What did you call me?_ ”

Briefly, I entertain the idea of breaking up the argument with tears. Play up the femininity that Whiteflower seems to regularly use to her advantage.

I can’t muster it. Too fucking frustrated.

And, as I could have predicted, Flower is already taking that approach, tears in her voice if not in her eyes. She’s hanging onto Gunmetal’s arm and pulling, holding her other hand out towards Blazer and protesting, “Stop it…! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Move, Addi,” Gunmetal jerks away from her fragile grip, and his sword is in his hands all too suddenly.

Something is wrong.

What the  _hell_ is going on?

There is a sharp, grating scrape of metal against metal as Hellblazer slashes at Gun’s plated chest.

Something is  _very wrong_ .

A chainmail-gloved palm grips the flat of the blade and pushes down. Gunmetal wrestles the sword down from his chest and brutally cracks his sword hilt across Blazer’s jaw.

“Typical men!” Knifebaby is snarling, hissing, and the sound of a throwing knife whistling through the air rends even louder than the clashing of the boys’ swords.

Newts doesn’t weave away in time. A clean slice across his cheekbone oozes blood, and his eyes are wide with shock. Some of my anger dissolves into astonishment.

“What in the _hell_ are you doing?!” Newts shouts, hand flying up to the wound.

The skin over the back of his hand splits as another knife flutters by. Knifebaby sweeps towards him, arms swinging, and Newts can't get away fast enough.

Silversun is standing there, watching, uselessly.

“ _Heal him!_ ” I snarl, and Silver jolts badly, turning a baleful look my way. I couldn’t care less; he’s obliging, and I’m wrenching Knifebaby off of Newts. “Baby, how about you simmer the fuck down and put your fake feminist bullshit aside until-…”

Mistake.

Knifebaby rounds on me, and I can’t tell whether or not that was what I’d intended. I want to take apart the misandry she tries to pass off as ‘social justice’, as if it makes her  _better;_ I want to take  _her_ apart because she can’t be trusted anymore.

“You’ve got to be kidding…” Newts snarls, but I only half-hear him. My blade is held out in front of me – defensively, at first. Awkwardly, when I remember that I have no real clue how to wield any kind of weapon.

A sharp knee is thrust against my gut, and I topple. Baby’s full weight crushes against curves that are surprisingly tender, the side of my skull rebounding off the concrete. My head’s turned, jaw bruising against the ground, and the beast is just…watching.

It isn’t making any move towards us, and even though I can’t discern where its eyes are, I can feel it staring.

“ _Baby!_ ” I gasp, and try to shove at her. “Ba-…”

I cough; her forearm is shoved under my jaw, but Newts is wrestling her off of me, hauling her back. Silversun makes no attempt to help Newts, nor does he lift a finger to help me back onto my feet. If anything, his spiteful little smile isn’t concealed right away when I cringe and clutch my stomach. He’s re-armed himself, having removed a mace from his inventory, and I really don’t like the way he’s holding it.

The brute still watches, and waits for us to lead on.

Or for us to tear each other to pieces, until that’s no longer an option.

“Baby, you just attacked a _girl_ ,” I snarl. My masculinity accepts the blow, buffered by the relief of seeing Knifebaby falter and Newts lock her arms into an iron grip. “Something fucked up is happening – and you two!”

That Flower has been totally useless in disrupting the fight between Hellblazer and Gunmetal is offensively non-surprising. Their weapons must have been knocked aside at some point, or maybe they just found physically grappling with one another was more satisfying. Blazer is holding his own against Gun’s impressive mass, but my yell put a crack in Gunmetal’s focus. Hellblazer overtakes him, shoving him brutally to the wall.

“Could you act any more like children any fucking more than you already are?!” I screech over the shrill scrape of metal. “You nearly crushed Whiteflower!”

She’s stock-still, barely an inch from Gunmetal. Some of Blazer’s force deflates as the pair of them realize she was nearly caught between the warrior and the wall.

“This is fucking pointless, and something’s obviously happening to us!” I snap. The fire’s been snuffed out of everyone, by the looks of it, but I’m dragging myself up and I’m shaken and it _fucking figures_ that the moment _darling Flower_ is almost harmed, _that’s_ when people shut up and show a bit of sense –

“You shouldn’t be mad at each other!” I shouldn’t be mad at Flower. “We’re friends! We should be mad at this _fucking place!_ ” I’m not mad at her. She’s my friend. I’m saying this as much for myself as everyone else. The difference is, I know I’m right. I don’t have to jam this down my own throat, just to make myself listen.

If I were a delicate little girl that everyone wanted to hold and protect, I wouldn’t have to jam anything down’s anyone’s throat, ever.

“Now calm the fuck down and take your aggression out on any asshole who tries to get in our way, instead!”

And they’re all just  _looking_ at me, blankly. If they weren’t going to listen, they shouldn’t have shoved me into the leadership role. I sure as hell never wanted it, but when things started to get difficult, none of  _them_ stepped up. None of  _them_ had the balls, or the strength, or the  _intelligence_ .

I’m sick of no one acknowledging that I’m  _smart_ . Those fucking colleges won’t give me the time of day, work treats me like shit; my fucking  _gaming team_ are the only ones to ever listen to me, and now look at them –

“Wings, are you oka-…”

I can’t immediately tell whether the flash of red that I see is in my head, or on top of Whiteflower’s. With my hand around her throat, squeezing, she can’t finish that sentence.

“Aren’t you just so _fucking sweet_ ,” I snarl, and clench down on my grip.

She’s like the little sister I never had, or wanted. She gets all the attention. She gets all the praise. And the worst part is that no matter what happens, even when there’s something toxic eating at us and making us  _murderous_ , she  _never gets angry_ . She’s as sweet as  _fucking sugar_ and I can’t  _stand_ it –

There’s a weak, wet rasp working up from Flower’s throat as she chokes, and it evolves into violent coughing when my hands are wrenched away from her. Blazer and Gun have forgotten their grudge match to tear me off of her, and it’s like being doused in cold water. Even as I go listless, they don’t stop prying me away, forcing me to stagger for several steps.

I just let them direct me, watching Whiteflower gingerly press her hands against her throat and gasp shallowly. Her tears still haven’t spilled.

I think I might’ve shocked her to the point where they just… _won’t_ .

“Oh god,” I’m shaking. Gun’s hands are still tightly gripping my arms, and I’m actually thankful for it. My knees might buckle. Did I seriously just do that? “Flower, I am so sorry…”

She isn’t saying anything. She simply looks over towards me, still pained.

There are too many eyes on me. I can feel Gun’s covered gaze, boring holes into my head. Blazer is bristling, Silversun and Knifebaby’s expressions are slack.

Only Newts is sparing me, watching the hulking thing heave with each breath.

“We have to get to the church,” he mutters, “as fast as we can.”

With every cautious, collective step we take, the beast takes one to follow.

After Newts’ statement, it’s as though we all implicitly agree not to speak another word, for fear of it coming off as inflammatory. The sloppy single-file line we form keeps us far from the edge of the uncanny, reeking sewage-water, but the order of it is doing what words are just as capable of.

Newts has the presence of mind to be between Gunmetal, who’s leading the procession as our armored tank, and Hellblazer. Silversun is following; Knifebaby, after him; then me.

And then Whiteflower. She walks close to me, and my palms ache and fingers twitch; why the  _fuck_ is she so close?

If it didn’t keep him close to the ‘groom’, I’d have broken our collective vow of silence to suggest Blazer and I switch places. He should’ve been bringing up the rear, anyway, not our healer. His shoulders are hunched, though, and I think that even though the rest of us have simmered, he hasn’t.

When Newts speaks, it jars me to the point where I miss a step, and Whiteflower collides with my back. I nearly hit her.

“I think we’re below the Giver’s Square.”

“We could drop it – _him_ off,” Blazer growls. “Be done with this bullshit.”

“She _said_ to take him to the church,” Knifebaby snaps back testily, and preemptively, I speak up to cut off the argument before it escalates.

“We can at least get the hell out of these sewers. Head up into the Giver’s Square, go down the east path, and then the church isn’t far. Right?”

“Can it even climb?” Silversun has an almost lofty tone, like he’s speaking to a remarkably stupid child. I have to resist swinging the blunt end of my knife into his elfin face.

“Presumably,” I scowl. “This is a quest. Quests are designed to be solvable. We lead it up there, to the church, and-…”

“What, get experience and level up?” I have no idea why Silversun is arguing with me. “This isn’t a game, anymore, it’s not just a ‘quest’!”

“Except it _is_ still a game and it functions like one, regardless of whether or not we might die,” I seethe. “So how about we try it, and if we don’t get there in time and Gemma kills us, you can gloat over being right _then_.”

Silversun looks briefly at a loss, then snipes unhappily, “I didn’t even want to come along for this, or join your group-…”

“Then you should’ve died,” Blazer interjects roughly, and –

Holy shit, I didn’t realize how pissed off he looks.

“We’re going _now._ ” He doesn't leave room for any further argument, shoving both Newts and Gun out of his way to lead us towards the exit ladder. There’s a moment in which I’m positive Gunmetal’s about to lash out in retaliation, but he reins it in.

Whiteflower is still nearly attached to my back, as we approach the ladder. I’m surprised over how little argument there is, over who goes up first; Hellblazer’s already halfway up, and Newts starts up next after gesturing to the pretty-boy healer to follow next.

My guess is that no one trusts Silversun not to make a run for it.

I don’t bother to try to make Flower go up before me. It’s not worth the discussion, and I’m almost positive that if I hear her timid little voice, I’ll hurt her. I chance a quick look back at the bile-monster before I head up, though, and feel a disheartening unease over the fact that it’s gone stock-still again.

Almost retroactively, I find myself agreeing with Blazer’s idea. Gun is sturdy and strong…he could’ve grabbed the sword still jutting from its chest and hauled it up after him.

…Although, it’s just as massive as Gunmetal is. Maybe not.

Something brushes my ankle, and I’m still on-edge and jerked rudely out of my thoughts. I kick back, knocking Flower’s hand away hard.

“S-…sorry…” The ladder creaks quietly when she clings to it for support, climbing on pause, and I almost want to kick at her again.

“Just don’t.”

I’m only halfway up the ladder, and I hear that maddening circus music again. Strangely, it motivates me to move faster, if only because I want to get to the east side of the virtual city. It’s doubtful that music can be heard from there.

It’s still dark outside (thank god), and the blast of cold night air is as refreshing as it is offensive. Being able to breathe something other than the stink of bile and rot has topped my list of ‘best feelings in the world’, overtaking even home-cooked food and finding quality free porn.

Gun stoops to help Whiteflower up the last short way up, hauling her as easily as someone picking up a kitten, and Newts and I both seem to have similar ideas. He crouches beside me, peering through the darkness to look for the beast.

“Is it following us up?” His brows knit together.

“Too dark to tell. Throw a fireball down there, or something?”

“It might think we’re attacking it,” Newts shakes his head. “I could go partway back down, but if it _is_ climbing the ladder, I don’t want to move right at it…”

“I could warn you, if it looks like you’re getting close?”

“We don’t know how fast it can move. Might be too late, by the time either of us see-…”

“ _Guys!_ ” Silversun’s deep baritone hits a surprising panicked pitch, and we both look over our shoulders towards him. He’s pointing, quaking, and it’s clear what startled him.

The beast is looming by Hellblazer, out of the sewer and several feet away from the manhole without any of us having even blinked. Blazer has his replacement sword in front of him, blade crossing before his body defensively, but the groom is near-motionless.

I can see Blazer considering his original sword, but he doesn’t make a grab for it.

“That solves that,” Knifebaby seems rather detached, and for a change, I think she’s being the cleverest about it. No use in wondering _how_ ; we’ve still got a task ahead of us.

“So, east,” I get back up, trying to vent the niggling tension in my gut by kicking the manhole cover back into place. I succeed, but it hurts like a motherfucker. “We’ve got to lead our lucky bachelor as far away from people as possible.”

“What’s it matter if we do?” Blazer’s still got his sword up, and it’s unnerving. “We’re in quest mode. Only people around are NPCs.”

“NPCs can still attack us, and I don’t want to assume that _thing_ only affects us.” And hello again, irritation. Meet your new friend, sore foot. “I don’t know how much time we have left, do _you?_ So getting held up fighting is probably a _bad_ thing.”

“Then let’s not waste time arguing, either,” Newts cautions, and he’s already started to walk, crooking a finger towards the groom. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t budge until we’ve all begun to follow, grumbling bitterly under our breaths.

The church is tall enough to be a visible landmark, as we take the eastern path down to where cobblestone streets form a rustic, NPC-heavy neighborhood. Despite my warning, I have no idea how we’ll avoid running into people; any character that can’t be found tending a shop to the west is almost always  _here_ , milling about the streets or wandering towards the facilities built in to the game. There’s the library, where the game makers built in an immersive version of an FAQ; the doctor’s office, where you can heal your character of all afflictions if you don’t happen to be grouping with a healer. It’s the ‘starter zone’, bustling with false life, and as we draw closer I think I hear the ambient conversation noises broken up by screeches of pain.

Blazer’s footsteps pick up in speed, peeling away from the rest of the group, and I have a sinking feeling I know what he plans on doing.

“The quest!” I shout after him. “We’ve got priorities…!”

Even though he’s widening the gap between us fast, I’m sure I hear him say, “Fuck your priorities,” before charging ahead into the mass of townspeople.

They’re tearing at each other, hitting and striking each other down. It’s developing into a full-scale riot; my stomach churns almost as violently as my heart begins to hammer, against my ribcage.

The violence is just…infectious. Blazer isn’t even trying to fight the urge, swinging his sword in an upwards arc and cleaving a man between the legs, jerking the blade up.

…He always does fight better when he’s pissed.

The brutality alone isn’t enough, though; the sheer number of NPCs between us and the church are enough to overwhelm him, and maybe that realization hit Whiteflower at the same time, because she’s darting past me – at fucking last – to put herself in the middle of the chaos.

She’ll be ripped apart, and I don’t think I care. She had to know what she was getting into.

…But she’s making no effort to defend herself, and that sparks the last straw, setting it and my temper ablaze.

“Fuck it, _kill them all_ ,” I snarl, and I don’t have enough awareness to be shocked that Newts is promptly bringing down lightning on the masses. Gunmetal’s charged off after Whiteflower, and I’ve already lost track of the remaining two, but I can’t care. I’m not thinking at all, anymore. The capability has been replaced by a white-hot, directionless need to destroy something.

I forgo the blade for the bow. The solidity of it is good; the tautness of the bowstring is better. Watching the first arrow fly and tear through a screaming NPC's neck is best.

There are still too many of them, though, and the ranged weapon is already a burden. I can’t get to my knife in time, grappling against a NPC woman who charges me with the bow between us, trying to shove her back with it. Her full weight bends it.

Where the fuck is Silversun? If she gets to me, I’ll need someone to be the healer…

And Whiteflower is too fucking useless to do it.

I barely manage to wrestle her back, but she’s clawing at my face, nails scraping my forehead as I protectively bend my neck to hide my face from her hands. Newts calls out – “The  _church_ , head for the church-!”

The quest. Shit.

Forcing the NPC off of me, I drop the bow and my knee against her gut, drawing my knife and knocking her arms away to plunge it into the side of her throat.

Where the fuck did the groom go?

I look around wildly, and almost miss seeing it in the midst of the mob. There’s smoke rising off of it – or am I imagining that? It isn’t moving towards the church, though.

I growl, getting up and almost stumbling as I clumsily step on the body rather than over it, running towards the chapel. I’m moving too fast for the NPCs to get a lock on me, but I don’t avoid every swipe and blow; something sharp tears through my leather leg armor, and even though the damage to  _me_ is minimal, I hiss.

The others had better be heading the same way, I swear to fucking god…

I can see Gunmetal’s bulk; he’s physically lifted Flower onto his back and charging through the masses, knocking them aside like they’re gnats. I spot the glow of Newts’ orb before I see  _him_ ; he’s there, waiting on the steps, slinging fire and ice at the enemy.

Silversun… Knifebaby’s got him, she’s shoving him up the stairs ahead of her.

Almost everyone accounted for, but Blazer –

“ _Forget them!_ ” I yell, and I don’t recognize the tone to my voice. Masculine or feminine, I don’t remember ever sounding so guttural and vicious, and I manage to scare myself. It brings me out of that single-minded, sadistic headspace, and I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.

From where I am, I can see a warrior’s wild mane and the flash of a sword swinging about, flicking drops of dark blood into the air. I can’t tell if he heard me. If he did, he’s ignoring me.

“We don’t have much time left!” My voice isn’t carrying well over the screaming, I realize. I have no idea if I’m right, about how soon the sun will rise, but I _feel_ the pressure of the time limit encroaching, and I’m too terrified of the consequences to question it, now that I can think again.

NPCs just keep streaming towards us, coming from further east, and if Blazer intends to take them all out…

But they’re inadvertently pressing him our way. The crush of bodies all clawing at each other is like a wave, forcing Hellblazer to cut a path to the church. The reeking beast is finally following. I turn away, dashing up the stairs and becoming aware of the burn up my thighs, the ragged feeling in my lungs and through the muscles up my sides.

“Get the doors!” I pant as my foot hits the top step, and Gunmetal obliges me. Whiteflower slips off his back as he pushes the heavy stained glass entrance open, holding it and waving us through. I don’t go inside, though. I turn, and watch for Hellblazer.

To my immense annoyance again, Whiteflower stays nearly right at my side.

The groom is still following, leaving a thick trail of bile up the stairs – like pitch, or oil – but I don’t even see its feet move. I can’t honestly tell where its feet  _are_ , anymore. It’s dripping and oozing more, like a physical manifestation of sick, and I almost want to retch, myself.

“Get him inside,” Gun urges tersely, pulling the door open wider to let the last three of us through. The groom is closer behind us than I would have ever thought we’d allow, but perhaps having the end so near in sight is making us careless.

The chapel is dimly lit, within, candles burning more intensely than they should and making the air thicker with smoke. The moment the groom is through the doors and Gunmetal slams them shut, oxygen is overtaken by that stench, and I physically gag.

The cacophony outside roars in my ears, several NPCs scrambling up the stairs towards us. They aren’t nearly preoccupied enough with tearing each other to pieces.

I stay by Gunmetal to help him barricade it bodily for the few moments that they still seem determined to burst inside; mother of  _fuck_ , there are fingers between the heavy wood, bent and twitching…

I push at them, trying to get them out, but the scrape of flesh and swell of blood bursting from the nails is so grotesque that I wish I’d just let them open the door. Just a crack, just enough for them to get away. The doors stop rattling after a minute, but I can’t see through the colored glass whether or not they’re still directly outside the church. Before I can caution Gun, he’s abandoning the self-appointed post, to step forward, surveying what I hadn’t given more than a quick, panicked glance.

At the very end of the long carpeted aisle is the altar. Two figures are there; an NPC, in the garb of a priest…and Gemma. The carpet is sticky and stained, from her footsteps, and a thin trail of inky black strands stretch from the bride to the doors…

For the span of a heartbeat, it’s silent. I stand alongside my group, the question of whether or not we’ve satisfied Gemma’s demands hanging in the cloudy air, but then the wedding march starts.

Too many things happen, all at once.

The beast is lurching away from hair as it whips upwards, coiling around the sword in its chest and  _pulling_ . The priest is accosted by men I hadn’t seen before, lurking in the shadows; they’re monks, perhaps, and they’re beating him down, bludgeoning him to death so fast that I don’t even have time to gasp.

He’s already dead.

“Kill them!” Knifebaby shrieks. “They’re interrupting the wedding!”

I immediately nock an arrow, and the others are running down the aisle frantically. I fumble before I can fire; I’d just done it, hadn’t I? How the  _hell_ had I managed it, before?!

Gemma’s grotesque face is veiled, and she’s silent…but I’m absolutely certain that without the priest and someone to perform the ceremony, she’ll kill us all. I’m useless in this fight (frustrating, enraging-) and that knowledge spurs me forward, gripping the altar for support when I reach it.

The groom is over halfway down the aisle, but I don’t think any of us are willing to wait.

“All of you, cover me!” My voice is a bit shrill out of panic. I have _no idea_ how to perform a wedding ceremony. The only weddings I’ve ever _seen_ have been on television sitcoms.

I’ll improvise. Fuck it.

“Uh, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this-...this thing, and this...woman, I think, in holy matrimony-...”

Nearly all the NPCs in religious clothing have crumpled, but the couple that remain are trying to get to me. A thick tome collides with my shoulder hard enough to make my knees buckle, but the singe of Newts’ defending flame actually hurts more.

The only ones actually bothering to keep me safe are Newts, and Knifebaby.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Gunmetal barreling into Blazer, and the two of them aren’t bothering with weapons, anymore. Someone’s fist cracks across the other’s jaw, and Silversun’s mace bangs and scrapes viciously over armor. From Blazer’s yell, I can tell they’re starting to gang up on him.

And Whiteflower is just standing there, staring at the ground, walking towards me.

“If any of y-you can think of a reason why these two should not be wed, for fuck’s sake, keep it to yourself so we can be done with this-…”

She grabs my wrist lightly, and I sputter mid-sentence as I move without thinking. Lashing out, I retaliate against her grip and twist her arm around her back, holding it there and  _squeezing_ .

I don’t let her go. I have to continue. The groom’s nearly to the altar, now.

“Do the bride and groom have any, uh, vows they’d like to share…?”

She’s so goddamn breakable. She isn’t even fighting me. Pathetic.  _Why do Gun and Blazer like her so damn much_ -…

Neither monstrosity says a word, though I can’t say I expected them to. I think I hear Flower’s wrist crack. It’s followed by a sharp clang; I think that Blazer knocked Gun’s helmet off.

“Then, by the power vested in me by this quest, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride,” my grip is shaky, but my voice isn’t, and Gemma’s hauled the beast right up to the front. Unnervingly long fingers lift the veil back, over her head, and she leans forward…

I can’t tell if she kissed the creature’s mouth. I don’t want to think about it.

‘ _Vows: quest completed.’_

The reek and smoke both dissipate, husband and wife now nowhere to be seen. All that’s left are the stains on the carpet, the corpses of NPCs, and a heap of Gemma’s hair.

I exhale, and carefully release my grip on Whiteflower’s arm. It’s…easier to breathe. Not so hot.

“Are…you okay…?” I hesitate to ask.

She doesn’t answer, and she’s gone pale. Flower would never hurt anyone, willingly. She’s sweet. She’s harmless. She’s like a little sister to me, in a few ways, and oh  _god_ I was hurting her-…

Gunmetal is approaching, straightening him helmet. His armor is badly scuffed, and I’m positive Blazer didn’t fare any better. I can hear Silversun murmuring healing spells, but everyone is otherwise silent, and I slowly sink against the altar with shaking knees. I just can’t support my own body, right now.

Flower allows Gun to wrap one arm around her tiny frame, while Knifebaby kneels by the altar to collect the hair.

I’m tired…and I’m hungry…and this is all so far from reality that I can’t comprehend my own weakness. I’m detached from the pain, suddenly, and the terror, the adrenaline.

It doesn’t hit me right away that I’m crying.


	6. Chapter 6

“…Sorry I called you a cocksucker.”

Blazer breaks the silence as Newts slowly sinks down on the floor beside me. His warmth is kind of comforting, although for a split-second I can’t tell it apart from the piping heat of anger and blood, and it feels like something's struck through my skull.

Gunmetal is quiet, and I think he’s about to start tearing into Blazer again, but I’m relieved when he just says, “Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean any of that.”

Silversun’s arms are wrapped around himself, and despite his head being down, I still notice him stealing frequent glances at Blazer. Probably expecting – or hoping – for an apology, too, but he doesn’t get one.

My turn, then. My shoulders hunch slightly while I wipe quickly at my wet face, and Newts lifts a hand just an inch, like he’s contemplating putting it on my shoulder to try to keep me calm. He thinks better of it, though, and I wish that he hadn’t.

“…I’m sorry, Flower,” I sound hoarse. “I… I don’t know why I-…”

That’s a lie. I do know why. It’s because I’m a jealous idiot.

Jealous of a  _little girl_ . How pathetic am I?

She unwinds from Gunmetal, just a little, and I’m expecting her to give me a weak consolatory answer.

I don’t expect her to say, “It’s okay if you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you!” My eyes widen, and I’m grabbing the altar for support as I stand. “I’d never _hate_ you!”

Despite thinking, for a short while, that I did. What is  _wrong_ with me…?

Whiteflower just shrugs her tiny shoulders, a little, and doesn’t respond. It’s not adequate; I need to say more. I need to prove to her that I don’t actually… Fuck, have I  _ruined_ her? Did I break something in her, by lashing out?

Gunmetal and Hellblazer appear to be in silent debate, the two of them staring each other down until, very slowly, Gun is withdrawing from around Flower and allowing Blazer to hold Flower in his stead. He’s tentative about it, and I can’t remember Blazer ever being so careful about anything.

“So,” the tip of his sword rings against the stone part of the floor as it’s lifted and sheathed, freeing his other arm to twine around the petite healer as well. Blazer doesn’t look at anyone in particular to address the question to, “What next?”

I already know I’m going to have to be the one to answer.

“We keep moving forward. We…” Shit, shit, don’t break. I cannot let my voice break. “We need to get out of here, and keep doing these quests.”

“There’s a problem.”

I look towards Knifebaby, stomach dropping. “What problem?”

“I can’t add this hair to my inventory,” she speaks slowly, as though it should have been obvious. “I didn’t get the quest update notification, did _you?_ ”

Fuck. She’s right.

My knees are keeping me pretty unsteady as I go to kneel by the other rogue, fingers slipping through the hair warily. Gemma promised it wouldn’t attack, but I still can’t help but find it…unnerving.

It just feels like hair, though. Wiry, but smooth, flowing right out of my grip. It takes me a couple of tries to open my inventory screen, but concentrating on it while I pick up strands does absolutely nothing. I wonder if it’s just me, at first, but while  _unusual_ , it hasn’t been too  _difficult_ to put things in my inventory before.

“How do we store it?” Newts has stood up, as well. “If we just carry it around, we risk losing it…”

“Can it just… Could we take it to the Quest Master?” Silversun suggests uncertainly.

“Probably not,” I shake my head slowly. “It’s never been part of the game, before, where you could do a quest in stages… I think we still need every item before he’ll accept them and fork over that fucking key.”

“But how do we store it, then…” Gunmetal takes a step forward, but halts when Knifebaby throws up one halting palm.

“Stay back for a moment,” she snaps, then leans in closer to me. Without thinking, my eyes flicker to the way her chest heaves and presses together as she gets close, and I hope to god she didn’t notice.

Her voice is lowered to a conspiratorial low note, lips practically against my ear while she whispers, “You know what’s inside me, don’t you.”

Holy shit, I’m so thankful I don’t have a dick to react to that, right now –

I dig my nails into my palm. It’s the adrenaline confusing me, and the nearly-offensive token dominatrix look. I shake it off. “What are you talking about?” For the sake of privacy, I keep quiet, too.

“The _hair_ ,” she almost hisses. “I think this is the same.”

It takes me a moment.

The hair, the House of Mirrors – I’d seen exactly what I thought I saw.

I fucking  _knew_ we couldn’t trust Baby.

She clamps her hand against my knee, digging in nails that are sharper than mine. “Quiet,” she murmurs preemptively, warningly. “ _This_ hair is the same. It needs to be  _inside_ .”

My muscles are coiling and clenching. That prospect is revolting. “The hair’s already in you, then, why do we need more?” I balk.

“If that would work, we would’ve gotten the quest update already,” she rolls her eyes. “It’s obviously different. This is quest-specific…”

For a manic moment, I want to take the clumps of hair on the floor and try to force Knifebaby to…do whatever the hell she did, before, to let it in. Having it burrow into anyone else is too disgusting of a thought, and I’d be damned if I expected anyone to  _volunteer_ for that.

“So, you-…”

“Can’t. I was trying,” Baby shut me down before I could get the sentence out. “It won’t take me.”

My throat feels tight, and I nod slowly. Just…great.

I glance back at the others to find them all staring with varying degrees of suspicion. I feel like I should tell them, but I know what will happen if I do. Arguing. Fear. Repulsion, and I sure as fuck can’t blame them for that; that’s what’s overtaking me the most, right now.

“…Flower, or Silver, I don’t really care which,” I swallow the stony lump in my throat. “Heal me if something goes wrong, okay?”

Blazer’s brow furrows, but Gun and Newts are immediately more vocal.

“Whatever you’re about to do is clearly bad news – hold on a moment…”

“Wings, wait, if you’re doing something reckless-…”

I look away from them and back down at the hair, muttering to Knifebaby. “So how do I-…?”

It coils around my wrist before I have any more time to wonder, and the twisted strands form a string that comes to life. Winding around my wrists, my throat, every joint –

And then they pierce through and start to burrow and I  _scream_ .

I hear both healers distantly, like they’re speaking to me from behind a thick pane of glass. They’re throwing healing spells at me, stitching the tears in my muscles back together, but it just repairs the damage so that the hair can tear through it again.

I have to break free of them they’re cutting me and wrapping around my bone, merging with my body completely  _oh god_ ,  _I’ll do anything to make it stop_ and it’s a quest, it’s part of a quest, this is how we get free, the pain can only last for a little while and then it’s over and we’ll be free –

My lips clamp together, controlling the knee-jerk reaction to thrash and convulse on the floor…and the pain begins to dull. I choke on fluids – vomit, tears, blood, all my own – and relent to the ache.

It stops.

‘ _Unlocking Doors: One of four artifacts obtained.’_

I blink the quest update out of my vision, forced to shut my eyes tightly to make it stop swimming over my vision and disorienting me.

I become aware, slowly, of the fact that I blacked out, only because gray is creeping back into my vision and both Newts and Gunmetal are over me, helping me sit up. Knifebaby is close, staring intently; I don’t have the strength to look around for the others, yet.

I can feel the strings. The hair. Inside of me, moving with me. Like they’re a part of me. It’s akin to being hyper-aware of my veins; how I’d imagine it would be if I could feel them stretching and channeling blood, only it’s deeper, thicker,  _wrong_ but not…as horrible as I feared.

“How are you feeling?” Newts lets Gun take over propping me up carefully. The movement makes my head spin briefly.

“…Don’t know how to answer that,” I glower at Baby. She could have warned me, or _something_ …

But her expression is an utter blank. I wonder if it was even like this, for her.

“How long was I out?” Carefully, I twist to let Gunmetal help me stand, and cringe. It’s…not quite pain, that I feel, but a tautness to the pseudo-strings with every movement. They stretch and pull, and I feel like it should be agonizing. The phantom-pain is enough to make me wince, regardless.

“Not long,” Hellblazer speaks up, almost snappishly, and if I weren’t still reeling I’d be offended that he isn’t showing a little more concern. “Sun’s just coming up.”

“What else should we do, while we’re in the east?” I’m able to stand on my own, now, but I don’t want to yet. Leaning against Gun is keeping me more mentally present, I think. I don’t get distracted by the sensation under my skin.

“We have monsters and flowers to look for,” Newts is keeping close, as well, like he intends to catch me in case I pitch forward.

“Then we look for monsters,” Blazer says briskly. “We don’t know whether or not that fucking ‘flower’ quest will even amount to us getting the key to the city.”

“We shouldn’t discount it, though,” Newts retorts sternly, and the tone hits a chord in all of us, I think. It’s like being reprimanded or scolded for sneaking a cookie, or something; my own mother had that tone _mastered_ , fine-tuned from years of teaching sixth graders.

“There’s no telling whether or not it’s related to the main quest, but if we neglect it we could find ourselves missing one key item and miss our opportunity to get out of here.”

Blazer’s glare is so heated it could sear, but I know what his reservations really are. He’s still holding Flower pretty tightly.

“…I don’t like it either, but we have to keep an eye out,” Newts looks grim.

“Fine,” Hellblazer unlocks his protective embrace. “So we explore the east side, and if anyone says we should split up to cover more ground, I will club you. In the face, with my sword.”

I actually hear Silversun’s jaw snap shut. My evaluation of his intelligence wavers, and I decide that it’s dropped. Any idiot with a sense of self-preservation would shut their mouth after Blazer told them to; you had to  _be_ that idiot in the first place to set up the first horror movie cliché trap.

“There’s one thing I think we’ve got to consider before we go searching,” Gunmetal cautions tensely. “The NPCs.”

“They stopped trying to bust in,” I hesitate. Whether they’re all still out there or not, if any of them still want to kill us-…

“How are we getting past them?” Silversun’s eyes were wide with trepidation. “Should we check if they’re still there? You, um – Newts? You could peek out and blast them with magic from inside?”

“That’s actually probably the safest plan, unless-…” Newts is glancing my way, towards my bow, and considerately shuts up before I have to humiliate myself. “You should rest up, Wings. As much as you can.”

Nope. Still pretty humiliated.

Newts approaches the doors, Gunmetal accompanying to jar them open and leaving the rest of us to stare uselessly after them. I can’t tell whether or not I’m the only one feeling so helpless and out of place, but I’m physically squirming, watching them get closer to danger while I’m not helping.

Not that I could help, anyway.

And  _fuck_ , every time I shift, I can  _feel_ them…

Gunmetal holds the door open by a crack, letting Newts peer out the space with glowing orb at the ready.

But the glow fades, and Newts leans back slowly, lips pulled into a taut line. “They’re still out there -”

Hellblazer growls.

“ – but they’re calm. They’re just…milling around, like they would be regularly,” Newts turns back towards us, and Gun lets the door shut again. “Attacking without knowing for sure that they’re hostile might _make_ them hostile.”

“Baby or I could go,” I suggest uneasily, only partially motivated by reason. “Rogues… We’re quicker…so, if one of us heads out there, we could get back quickly…”

I want it to be Knifebaby. Baby can slip into stealth mode; that’s an assassin-exclusive skill. And the string-like hair – if it feels like this inside me, and Baby did this  _willingly_ … Plus, the off way she’s been acting…

If anyone  _should_ be put at risk, it should be the person we can’t trust.

“Then you go,” Baby’s arms are crossed under her chest, and the sharp look of appraisal makes me feel like she knows exactly what’s going through my head. “You’re faster than I am.”

Shit.

“But, stealth-…”

“That won’t tell us whether or not they’re hostile,” Knifebaby arches one brow. “They won’t even see me.”

_Shit!_

“After what just happened with that hair,” Gun starts to argue, and it’d touch me if I could think past my sudden haze of anxiety.

“She’s standing,” Baby shrugs. “She seems fine to me, and if we waste time coddling each other, we’ll probably die here.”

It’s a jarring truth, and my head hangs briefly. I’ve been able to step up until now… Haven’t I? In hindsight, I feel like I’ve been so fucking strong and like it came so much more easily than it is right now.

Except, I know that’s bullshit. It’s been hell up until now, and this is no different. I just have to suck it up and do what needs to be done, the same way.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Baby’s right, I can handle-… I mean, I’m fine now,” my hands flex, and the hair coils all the way down to my fingertips. “I can do it.”

I feel the stare from the direction of the door, and lock eyes with Newts. He gives me a tiny affirming nod, and even though I don’t think anyone is about to waste time arguing about this, the agreement – or approval – drives the last nail into the coffin.

“I’ll cover you from the door,” he says. “Go quickly.”

I step forward as Gun pulls at the doors again, giving me room to slip by. They’re both keeping an eye on me as I put one foot ahead of the other, cautiously taking the steps one at a time. The NPCs don’t look like they’ve even noticed me; they aren’t reacting to the sound of my steps or moving independently. No signs that they’ve been engaged.

…The wisest course of action is probably, then, to…get the attention of one, before I get any closer.

“Hello…?” I call towards the closest one. Her back is turned, but at the sound of my voice, she looks towards me. One of her hands is a mangled mess of destroyed fingers.

Fuck, she had to have been the one with her hand in the door.

“Have you gotten lost, stranger?” She greets me evenly; generic NPC dialogue. No acknowledgment that she was just trying to kill us, and none for her hand…

For some reason, the calmness makes my heart beat faster and my palms feel a little clammy.

Behind me, the doors creak as Gun opens them wider, but I don’t pay the sound much attention. I’m still on my guard, but taking another step down the stairs.

“I’m…looking for a monster,” I swallow hard. “Or a flower.”

I don’t stumble over the word ‘flower’, and that’s more impressive than it has any right to be.

“The gardens at the library are very beautiful,” comes the programmed response. “They’ve planted many beautiful flowers there.”

“Is that true?” my lips twitch into a frown; I didn’t spend much time around the library…

The others have exited the chapel and caught up to me, and there’s one warm, supportive hand on my back for just a moment. I think it’s Newts, but I don’t look back in time to confirm it.

“I think it’s through the building, at the back. Either purely atmospheric, or built for the purpose of this quest,” he muses.

“Then let’s get the fuck over there instead of trying to track one of the actual keys to our survival,” Hellblazer’s plated shoulder bumps me slightly as he reaches the bottom of the steps, jostling me forward into following. “Unless any of you want to make more obnoxious small talk with the NPCs?”

“We get it,” Gun retorts. “We’re in a hurry.”

“If you _get_ it, then pick up the pace,” Blazer snarls without looking back. The stress has probably got him more irritable; if I hadn’t been so emotionally drained of the capability, after the groom vanished, I wonder if I’d be the same way.

Instead, I’m too unnerved and wrought with unpleasant shivers every time I have to step over a corpse.

They’re just NPCs. Not real people. Designating that as my mantra helps.

“Keep an eye out for unusual NPCs,” Blazer commands as we travel in a winding, shifting cluster, any semblance of tactical formation dissolved by the fact that none of us – not even Hellblazer, for all his harshness – seem willing to just march over the lifeless forms of non-real people.

I can barely stand the wet sound of my boots wading through blood.

“Gemma was… _different_ , not to mention new. I sure as hell never saw her in the past month, and we’ve done a fuckload of quests, so she stood out,” Blazer goes on. “So did that one with the eyes, and it’s safe to say we have no other choice than to go back to him. Maybe catch him by surprise, kill him before he can turn around…”

“You found the ‘eye’ one…?” Silversun nervously tries to clarify, but no one bothers to answer him.

“He can kill us with one look,” Baby sneers as she contradicts our warrior. “He was quick to show that off. _Attacking_ him is suicide.”

“He?” Silver’s voice trembles a little more, his next few steps at a jog to put himself in the very midst of the group. “He kills with a _look?_ ”

“We might have to take a cue from the way Gemma’s quest worked,” Newts interjects – god damn, is he sensible. “Make a trade.”

“That wastes time.”

“If he kills us, you run out of time to waste,” Gun’s tone is closer to Knifebaby’s; so, all was probably not forgiven, from earlier.

“I think they’re right.” Those are the first words Flower’s spoken in a while. Blazer doesn’t break stride, but he does jerk a little, looking back at her. She’s nearly in step with him, her short, slender legs struggling to keep up with his pace without slowing.

It makes me feel even worse. She doesn’t look so good, past the determination, and I just fucking  _know_ that she’s been keeping quiet because of me.

Blazer nods, reaching back to take her hand with an honestly stunning amount of gentleness. It’s like all the fight was taken out of him, for a second –

We’re going to another flower, too.

I nearly forgot what that  _meant_ . I’m taking quicker, longer steps, leading the procession alongside the two of them – three, if I count Gun, who isn’t very far behind Whiteflower. I owe it to her to be on guard, on her behalf, and if things go the same way...

The library, a gabled building with narrow windows, is close enough to hit with an arrow – if I were a competent archer, I mean. None of us appear to be terribly confident as we approach, but Blazer is keeping Flower steady enough, and vice versa.

A hand clasps around my wrist from behind, and the strings inside me move.

I snap around, Silversun pulled right to me and my other hand is poised to strangle. He doesn’t even gasp; his eyes go so wide I can see myself in them, and I force my hand to lower. It registers fast that he isn’t a threat, but there’s still a little stinging  _pull_ from inside me that makes me worry otherwise.

“S-sorry,” Silver chokes, voice hushed.

“It’s okay,” I think my eyes are wide too, now. “…You wanted something?”

It takes him a second to remember. I can’t blame him in the least.

The others are still moving, though, and we haven’t fallen behind by much. I don’t know if anyone even noticed the two of us stop.

“…The, the flower quest, and what happened with that NPC – Iris? She was a new NPC, like Hellblazer was saying, about the monsters – what I mean is,” Silversun’s speaking so fast that I only really catch most of what he’s saying. “Was Iris one of those ‘monsters’? Is the ‘flower’ we’re looking for another…person, like her, or-…?”

“She could’ve been a monster,” I latch onto that explanation pretty hastily, just because it makes me loathe the quest a little less. “I don’t really get what the hell is going on with these quests, but… They’re obviously all linked, if there are these new NPCs and all this horrible shit going on.”

If I sound confident in that theory, maybe I can convince myself.

If I convince myself and I turn out to be wrong, though, I could be the one to doom us all to captivity in this virtual torture chamber.

Silversun’s nodding, though. At least my doubt isn’t showing as much as I feel like it should.

Everyone else is filing through the library doors, and I slip past Knifebaby to get inside and keep a proper eye out. There’s a shallow wooden staircase to the right, leading down to rows upon rows of bookshelves, alternating in horizontal and vertical aisles; previously, the books themselves looked like a painted display, a solid block of repeating colors, but I can actually see the ridges and details of the texts, now, even from a distance.

An elder, hunched-over NPC is behind the long, C-shaped desk, writing tiny rows upon rows in a book that’s easily three times the size of his face – the librarian NPC. Apart from him, there are only meant to be a few people in here to give introductory information-gathering quests, hidden between bookcases… So I don’t pay that area much mind.

Light is streaming through the open double doors leading out into the back garden. It’s the most illumination the place is getting, and it’s a straight shot from the entrance.

“She’d be out there, right?!” Silversun comes up behind me, stepping through the threshold, and is immediately ‘shushed’. The librarian lifts his head at the alleviated pitch, holding his free hand furiously to his mouth.

“There’s no yelling in a library,” Knifebaby informs Silver with a snarky sort of delicacy, and he’s burying a red face against his palm.

“Sorry, that was stupid…”

Hallelujah, so he’s self-aware.

“I’ll go check first,” my tone is deliberately subdued to appease the librarian, who’s hunching back over his writings. I take quick steps towards the doors, but Gun catches me by the shoulder.

“Not alone,” he shakes his head. “Addi, just stay here for a minute, got it?”

“Sure,” Flower agrees quietly.

“I’ll cover you with magic,” Newts doesn’t leave us much room for argument, but a quick glance at Blazer reassures me that he’ll tear apart the first person who’d dare suggest he’d leave Flower unguarded.

The garden is bright and spacious, but there’s damn near nothing out here. I wasn’t naïve enough to expect actual plant life, but there isn’t even a person out here.

“…False lead?” Gun swallows thickly.

“Maybe not…” I turn back around. “Maybe they’ve gone inside. Iris was hiding, so…stands to reason.”

Gun gently pushes Newts aside, quick to follow me back inside. Blazer catches my eye from across the room, pressing Flower behind him and mirroring me when I lean against the railing, scanning amongst the bookshelves for something out of place.

I don’t recognize the NPC with the light violet hair and flowing skirts, only just visible through a gap between alternating shelves. She’s reaching up to her toes, a touch frantic in the way her finger skims over the top of shelf, like she’s looking for something important.

I look back at Whiteflower quickly. She’s taking soft steps towards me, neck craned to see what I’m seeing. Selfishly, I’m relieved she’s forgiven me enough be okay, coming closer.

“That’s her…?” she whispers, and I nod tentatively.

“Think so.”

“And she’s like the other one, right?” her eyes are following the girl’s nervous fluttering. “She’s not a real person.”

“None of them are,” I nod. “Just a flower, sweetie.”

“Okay,” she exhales, and she’s about to descend to the sunken part of the library before both Gun and I throw out our arms to stop her.

“You should still hang back, okay?” I caution.

“I’ll stay up here with you,” Gun says to her, then murmurs even lower, “I think I’m too big to get through…”

I nod, and crook a finger towards Blazer and the others. Briefly, I consider suggesting that Knifebaby slip into stealth mode and assassinate her…but without knowing for  _absolute certain_ that she’s the one we’re looking for, the idea sits strangely with me.

So much for that ‘not a real person’ bullshit, it still feels like orchestrating murder. Fantastic.

“Wait here,” I look back at Newts, too, and notice he’s white-knuckled, holding the orb. “Inside, around a bunch of flammable shit…”

“Agreed,” he nods grimly.

I tread down the staircase – only about five steps, down – and murmur to the three who’ve come down to join me.

“I think Silver and Baby should be our back-up,” I suggest, lips barely moving. “What d’you think?”

“Baby slips around and waits, Silver heals if it all goes to shit,” Blazer nods stiffly. “Let’s do this.”

Silversun looks caught between relieved and nauseated, but Knifebaby is already slipping off down another row, leaving us to make our approach. It occurs to me a little late that we could have strategized even more – two-pronged an attack, sending Blazer down one way with me to corner her. I could’ve had my bow out. I might be a crap shot, but she wouldn’t know that.

She gasps a little, when she sees us, but after her hand flits to her mouth, she goes lax. “Forgive me, you gave me a fright,” she murmurs politely. There’s no fear in her eyes, now, and her voice is measured, even. “May I help you find something?”

She sure as hell  _sounds_ like a regular NPC.

“I don’t remember you being here,” I don’t want her to run off, if she really is… “Who are you?”

“I am Saffron, and I help tend the gardens.” There’s a different nuance to that. I don’t think she wanted to tell us.

Blazer’s hands migrate to his hilt. I shift just a little, deliberately putting myself in the way of the sword.

“That’s a type of flower…isn’t it?” I _still_ want to be certain. There’s margin for error, there’s a _chance_ that she isn’t –

Saffron sweeps several books off the shelf, knocking them into me, and runs the other way.

“ _Fuck_ -…”

“You’re an idiot,” Blazer growls, and shoves me forward to pursue her while he ducks around the other way.

Saffron’s screaming; I can’t tell whether it’s in panic or pain. Did she run into Knifebaby? Fuck, which way did she even run-…?!

The bookcase creaks, and I drop hard before I even realize exactly what she’s done. It’s toppling forward, right onto me, and flattening to the floor only works for as long as the other bookshelf quavers. It falls like a domino, and I scramble too slow – Silversun rushes towards me, arm extended and catching mine,  _pulling_ -

“ _Agh!_ ”

Hard planks and heavy books have me pinned by the back of my legs, pressure and ache rocketing up my thighs – it wasn’t enough to crush me, and Silver helps to drag me out. The friction of the carpet smarts, leaving an itching burn.

Saffron won’t stop screaming though – “Please,  _please, it’s her!_ Not me, it’s  _her_ , she’s the flower!” – and my ears are ringing, and the underlying constant ‘ _shh_ ’ is grating –

Damn it.

The librarian has abandoned his post at the desk, shushing us all; I spot Gunmetal using his tanking abilities, drawing the NPC’s attention his way, but the result is that he’s trying to force them out the front doors.

It’s probably fine. Maybe even safer. Keeping Flower away from Saffron, that should be…good, even.

But I don’t want us split up.

“Get to them,” I grit my teeth, instructing Silversun, pushing off him a bit to stagger down the rows of shelves.

It’s like a fucking  _maze_ …

Once I see them, though, my knife is drawn and I steady out my gait. She’s bleeding, and badly; there’s a ragged diagonal slit through her shirt and stomach, too shallow to have been made by Blazer’s sword. Baby’s got her now, but can’t quite contain her; she’s kicking and struggling valiantly, one free arm grappling with her for the knife.

But I don't get to the two of them before Blazer did.

He stalks towards them both, and doesn’t give any warning past, “Duck your head,” before bring the two-handed blade slashing down through Saffron’s torso.

It rips through her brittle collarbone and tears across her breast, crossing her stomach wound with a gash far deeper. Baby’s arms have gone slack, letting her drop forward at Blazer’s feet, motionless and silent.

Dead, in an instant.

It reminds me so jarringly of Iris that my knees knock together, and I have to grasp to closest shelf just to stay on my feet.

Knifebaby gives Blazer a filthy look. “That could have hit me.”

“It didn’t,” he kicks Saffron over, exposing the gory mess. Her skirt’s thoroughly soaked through with blood, but her face… Aside from just a few flecks of deep red spattering her chin and cheek, it’s pristine. Just pale, and even though her lips are still parted wide, the expression isn’t one of shock.

There isn’t much expression, at all.

“We need her heart,” I hear myself say numbly.

“Then take her fucking heart,” Blazer plunges the sword straight through the exposed part of her ribcage. I didn’t notice the way his chest is heaving until now, every muscle stiff. Is it from exerting so much strength, or something else?

He’s just protecting Flower. If he’s more vicious than necessary, if he hates Saffron, that’s okay. Justified, even. She’s not even real.

I crouch down, which makes my already-aching leg muscles throb, and start shakily gripping for the heart-shaped muscle. It takes me several more tries than I pretend it does, to identify it among the mass of tissue.

I’m just shaken up. I breathe in deeply through the nose, and regret it because I can practically  _taste_ her blood.

The heart is in my hands, though. I can pull back…get out of here, and we can keep moving forward. My inventory opens when I will it, and I store the heart while still thinking about how the heat of it made my palms tingle.

The update notification follows my inventory screen, and I blink rapidly to clear my vision of both. When I can see clearly again, everything before me is deep red.

“So much blood,” I bemoan, and it’s stupid to. I’m all but drenched in the stuff. Blazer, weirdly enough, looks to have similar concerns as he drags a book over the flat of his sword, getting as much of the slick garnet off of it as he can.

“Just wipe it off on her skirt, or something,” Baby suggests. I blanch.

“That’s a little-…”

“She’s dead, it’s not going to offend her,” she sounds exasperated, and even though it’s callous, I feel foolish for not just doing it. Grabbing the bottom hem, I wipe down my forearms. 

Hellblazer sheaths his sword again and leans down, gripping me by the elbow to help me back up to my feet. I have no clue if it’s out of consideration or impatience, but decide to just follow him back up towards the upper landing.

The librarian is behind the desk again, but only Newts and Silversun are waiting for us.

“Where’s-…” Blazer’s directing the question at Newts accusingly, but he holds up a hand defensively, expression calm and voice purposely soft.

“Just outside. The librarian threw us out, and the NPCs that were still out there have cleared. They’re safe.”

“Good,” I answer on his behalf, since Hellblazer’s choosing to reply only with narrowed eyes and a nod, before he paces towards the front door. “We’ve got it.”

“Same as the last one?” Newts inquires, and I cringe.

“Exactly the same.”

“…Did you want me to heal you?” Silver asks. “Your legs…”

“It’s not that bad, I’m fine for now.” Plus the healing process will probably hurt more than achy muscles and a rug burn. Hell, if I close my eyes and think happy thoughts, I can just pretend I partied too hard, last night.

That would have been such a funnier thought if I hadn’t killed someone.

“We should ask the librarian for any informative updates, while we’re here,” Newts cocks his head towards the elderly man. “He usually answers questions about recent game updates, right? He might be able to tell us something useful about new NPCs…”

“Good thinking,” I’m admiring Newts’ brain so hard, right now.

Knifebaby saunters by me, approaching the librarian and leaning over, speaking slowly. “Hey, info-dump,” she over-articulates each syllable, like he’s actually hard of hearing. “Where are the new features from the latest update?”

He’s lifting his head, smacking his lips once before speaking in a wheeze, “The immersive world of  _Beyond the Free Realm_ has undergone a system-wide upgrade to create a more realistic environment for the players –”

Baby makes a sound of disgust. “Skip the introduction page bullshit!”

“ – not limited to the inclusion of touch, taste, and smell as a part of the sensory experience, or even stopped at the ability to experience realistic ramifications for reckless in-game action. Due to the nature of these technological developments, Quest Mode and Roaming Mode have been-…”

“What about new non-playable characters?” I interrupt, trying not to speak too loudly in case he just ‘shushes’ me. “Are there any more in this area? Other than Saffron?”

That manages to make him stop in his spiel about the ‘daily quest’ being updated to make use of all the exciting changes the game makers made. He smacks his lips again – that habit has never made me want to punch an old man more, right now – and launches into, “Due to new quests being added to  _Beyond the Free Realm_ , there are several new faces in all main areas of the game, including the Eastern Starter Zone, the Western Market District, the Southern Smoke Stacks, Dante’s Manor, and the Giver’s Square.”

He stops talking, there.

“That’s _really_ helpful,” I sigh, and Knifebaby huffs a little behind me.

Silversun tries, “How many new NPCs are in the starter zone?”

“Due to new quests being added to _Beyond the Free Realm_ , there are several new faces in all main areas of the game-…”

“Shut _up_ ,” Baby snaps too loudly, and immediately, his hand is raised to his lips as he ‘shushes’ her.

“Dante’s Manor,” Newts apparently has an entirely different train of thought going. “Tell me about the quest there.”

“Among the numerous new quests that have been added, the long-awaited quest that will allow players to access Dante’s Manor is now accessible. Good luck finding it.”

I feel like that should have been foreboding, particularly since the librarian can’t manage an encouraging tone through the rasp…but the false sentiment is just upbeat enough to match the weak smile they programmed in.

“I feel like that’s the most useful information we’ll get without him taking ages to get it all out,” I mutter a little darkly.

“So we’re probably stuck going to the guy who kills people by looking at them?” Silversun is almost vibrating with anxiety as we race ourselves to the exit.

“Only if no one’s come up with a better idea,” half my sentence is caught by the three people waiting for us, outside, and I get that uncomfortable feeling that we just invaded a very strained conversation. Blazer and Gun jerk sharply towards us, like they were expecting to be left alone with Flower, but the healer in question has a very different reaction.

She’s looking at me and moving her lips noiselessly once or twice, a few false starts, before she goes, “Wings, was it the same? Can I see it? The update says it was a flower, but I just need to…”

Blazer’s narrowed eyes are trying to literally burn through me. I’ve never been so sure about anything.

“I told her it was the same,” he doesn’t sound angry, though. I think he has to be keeping it together to uphold the lie.

She means the heart, of course, and if she sees  _this_ one for what it is…

I just don’t have it in me to deny her, though. She looks on the verge of pleading, and she probably wants to see it for the same reason we  _don’t_ want her to.

I cross my fingers – metaphorically – as I take the heart back out of my inventory. The organ is mostly intact but bloodying my hands, again. Tilting my palm forward by just a little, I let Whiteflower take a look while I scrutinize her face.

No fear, no shock, no dismay or repulsion. She confirms a second later with a shaky sigh, “Okay…good.”

It’s anything but good, and for a fraction of a second, I’m almost tempted to tell her so. “S-so,” I have to clear my throat to keep it from breaking, but there's still a bit of a squeak. “Have we thought of anywhere else to go, or are we trying to swap an eye for a-…hopefully not one of our eyes…”

“There’s nothing else for it,” Blazer mutters darkly. “We can’t just kill him, and if we keep pursuing this ‘Valentine’ quest, it probably stands to reason that there’s a flower in the west, and the Giver’s Square.”

“One for each cardinal direction – but the fourth may not be in the Square,” Newts begins, only for Baby to cut him off.

“Dante’s Manor is accessible, the librarian said,” she’s twirling a knife with surprising dexterity.

“So one to the west, and one to the north,” Gun sounds weary.

“What’s more, I think I know where the flower to the west is,” Newts hesitates, then looks at me. “You remember the girl at the inn, don’t you…?”

I almost don’t. Too much has happened. When Newts mentions her, though, I vividly remember the empty flower pot beside her, and the customer-service greeting she gave us.

“Her name is Gardenia,” I deflate a little. “Another flower name.”

“That’s probably her,” Blazer agrees.

“So are we going after her first, or after that Lagorio prick?” Gunmetal asks me more than Blazer.

“I think we should go for the next flower,” I’m a bit twitchy, looking at Hellblazer and expecting him to bite my head off, but he doesn’t. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with that douchebag, and it’s probably quicker to kill Gardenia than it is to get a quest from him.”

And I’m still so afraid of him that I’d rather cut open an innocent girl.


	7. Chapter 7

The big top tent is, predictably, gone from the Giver’s Square, as is the massive gate that encircled the freak show. We don’t linger there, on our way west; ‘Darling Valentine’ is still engaged and keeping us in quest mode, but I almost want to disengage for a moment.

I catch a glimpse of the Quest Master on his dais, sweeping his cane in an arc and tipping his bowler hat, and wonder if he’s roped more people into his sick game. Have more people logged on, that weren’t trapped in here yesterday?

Or maybe the pompous sadistic ass is looking over at us, giving a mocking salute to commend us on our progress.

I try to ignore him and pick up the tempo of my steps, seething.

The west looks a tad more bleak than it used to, and I have no clue if I’m projecting that outlook. The last time we stopped here, I thought maybe we could get food, some sleep…

The ache of hunger faded some time ago, but remembering that it was once a pressing concern rekindles the acidic burn in my gullet. How much time has even passed? How long is it safe to go without food or drink for, especially when you’re scrambling for your life and sweating and bleeding? What about sleep – I might have passed out briefly, a while back, but that sure as hell isn’t a solid eight hours of rest. For that matter, I haven’t even stopped to piss, and it’s frankly miraculous that I haven’t wet myself in terror.

It’s got to be fear that’s preventing me from feeling weak or dizzy. I have no clue whether or not adrenaline works that way, though…and if it does, it probably doesn’t work for so long.

I don’t get much of an opportunity to wonder if we’re trapped in some kind of physical stasis; the Inn of the Realm is nearly right before us, and that means we aren’t very far from Lagorio now, either.

“How should we go about this?” Newts asks, and someone catches me by the lower back. I didn’t even realize I’d weaved, a little, and I glance back quickly to give a short nod of thanks to Gunmetal.

Obviously, shouldn’t let myself get distracted by my physical condition. I’ve never been a very ‘Zen’ person, but mind over matter seems to actually be an important practice, as long as I’m here.

“We know it’s her, this time,” I right myself a little more. “Baby could go in, in stealth mode… Kill her before she can attack us, this time. Quick and clean.”

Quick, maybe. ‘Clean’… Doubtful.

“I’ll go for the throat,” Knifebaby looks indifferent. I can’t stand that. “Follow me in after the thirty seconds are up.”

“Why?” I almost protest.

“Because if she doesn’t _die_ , my stealth will wear off and I’ll need back-up,” she answers condescendingly. “Besides, I don’t want a _‘flower’_ in _my_ inventory.”

She stresses the word too much, and it convinces me that she’s about to reveal everything, so I just agree quickly, “Okay. Let’s do this fast?”

“Obviously,” she sneers, and slips into her stealth mode, opening the door to the inn.

Gardenia won’t note that as strange. NPCs aren’t programmed to see that happen.

“We _could_ just leave her there and come back in a few minutes,” Blazer suggests in an irate mumble, but I’m already counting to thirty under my breath. Good to know her increased abrasiveness is getting to someone other than just me, though.

…It’s not even the abrasiveness, actually. It’s the cold glint to her eye and the fact that nothing seems to be affecting her the way it was, before that _hair_ …

And once again, thinking about something has made me hyper-aware, and my stomach lurches as I notice I can feel the makeshift wires over the bones of my jaw.

Don’t think about it. Where was I – nineteen seconds? Twenty…

My shoulder connects with the door to push it open, unwilling to risk waiting too long. My timing is surprisingly flawless, but that doesn’t make the sight a relief. Gardenia is slumped over the front desk, arms stretched out. There are jagged clay pieces and soil, on the floor, from where she’d knocked over the flower pot.

Baby is coming back into view, behind her, practically flush against the dead NPC. The look she gives me is momentarily fierce, like she’s daring me to call her out on something, but then she’s stepping away and flicking blood off her knife.

“Come get her heart.” When she walks out from behind the desk, Gardenia slips off the slick surface and crumples to the floor, pale hair dragging through her own blood and getting stained.

There’s a little, audible wince behind me. Gun and Blazer pull Flower back to keep her far from the murdered girl.

I get my own knife ready, gently turning Gardenia over by her shoulder. She’s even more like a china doll than Saffron was, but her head is tilted too far back, some kind of ribbed length of flesh cut shallowly…and I can see it moving, through her cut throat.

Oh god. She’s still alive.

Leaning in closer, I pick up on a very soft gurgling sound – she’s trying to breathe through all the blood. Her eyes are open, staring at nothing; does that mean she’s conscious? Is she suffering?

She hasn’t bled out yet…

I want to curse Baby aloud for doing such a sloppy job, but my voice is strangled and doesn’t make it past my lips. I can’t even wrestle out a pathetic apology to the girl.

… All I can do is try to finish the job, quickly…

I reach for her blouse, and my hand locks up. I don’t want to stab her through it, for some reason. I also don’t want to undress her.

I don’t know how to kill her. I finally manage a word, “…Help?”

I think Newts is approaching me, but Silversun is actually the one to get to me first. He’s a few shades paler, but there’s something set about his expression, and I realize he’s looked like that since the library. This has all become real to him, now, at last.

Newts doesn’t linger; his steps slow and I hear him wince and murmur, so muted that he probably isn’t aware that I can hear him, “She’s so young…”

I don’t blame him for turning away. I want to, so badly, but Silversun is here now and this feels strangely like something between the two of us. I’m making him do my dirty work, but I’ve got to be the one to walk him through it.

It takes me a second to phrase it; I don’t want to tell Silver she isn’t dead and watch him lose his nerve, like I did. Or maybe see him maintain his nerve, and feel worse about the fact that I couldn’t manage to keep it together. “I need you to, uh-… Bash her chest in,” I clear my throat twice. “Quick and clean.”

It doesn’t dawn on me that I’m echoing what I said to Baby. Silversun gags, but catches himself and nods slowly.

“Sure,” he whispers. “I-I can do that.”

He gets out his mace, holds it at the ready. His pause takes long enough that I’m about to rush him – she’s still bleeding, her eyes are still open, I can’t stand knowing that she isn’t dead – when he abruptly brings the bladed end down and destroys her ribcage.

Her chest isn’t rising and falling, anymore, even barely.

“…Thank you,” I rasp, and Silver nods frantically, staring at the broken bones.

The addition of another leaking heart cues the notification,  _‘Darling Valentine: three out of four flowers obtained.’_ Technically, it’s progress, but that’s a cold comfort.

Flower doesn’t ask to see it this time, when Silver and I rejoin them. Silversun hasn’t put his mace away, but he holds it behind his back like he’s got a secret, concealing the bloodied end with this air of paranoia that almost inspires pity.

Every single one of us has killed today. If he thinks anyone’s going to blanch and proclaim him a murderer with a finger dramatically extended, he’s got more hope for us than I do.

I’m in the stages of accepting that even if we get out of this, we’re going to be psychologically fucked forever.

“Lagorio was by the weapons’ shop,” Newts breaks the prolonged beat of silence in which no one wants to suggest we move on, like we’re only developing a sense of ‘too soon’ just now. “He shouldn’t have moved from that bench, but there’s a small chance that because he isn’t operating like a regular NPC –”

“More like an evil, smarmy AI,” I mutter.

“He probably didn’t move,” Newts goes on, “but we should be prepared to make a back-up plan, and quickly, in the event that he isn’t.”

“Could charge down Dante’s Manor,” Blazer suggests darkly. “Who the fuck needs a quest, anymore. We’ve got the iron hulk and a dark mage to blow the doors down.”

“Game mechanics are still operational,” I argue. “That’s basically guaranteed not to work.”

“We shouldn’t waste time figuring one out _now_ ,” Newts circumvents further disagreement. “For now, we should go, and be ready to make a quick decision. Without bickering.”

He’s got the ‘adult tone’ again. That tone is my weakness.

Baby makes for the door, like she’s about to head out first, but stops long enough to let Hellblazer take the lead. Her whole ‘women’s lib’ attitude makes this kind of shocking, until I see the way she’s ducking behind several others and holding her head a little higher, once she’s safely got a few human shields in front of her.

My eyes narrow, and I shoulder her aside as I pass her.

Gun stops me from taking the lead, though, catching me warningly. “You saw how he was around the girls, before. I don’t think you should be too visible.”

Privately, I couldn’t agree more. Part of what makes me so damn nervous around Lagorio, unconnected to the eyes, is the way I can  _feel_ him looking at me like he’d rip me apart with his teeth, if the whim crossed him, and that he’d get an immense amount of sick satisfaction from it. I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him, if he tried.

So maybe I’m just being stupid or stubborn when I shake my head. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

He may be an unnerving, slimy son of a bitch, but my pride’s taken enough blows and I don’t want to be protected like a little girl. He can reserve that shit for Flower.

We’re coming up to the bench in question, and Newts’ concerns were unfounded. I smell him before I see him; whatever the sharp scent is, it’s still forming a poisonous, impermeable cloud around him that makes me cough. He’s stretched out there, lounging on the bench like it’s his own property. Heels are up on the iron-wrought arm, one arm is dangling over the opposite one and it’s bent in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable. It’s like he’s just trying to take up as much room in as arrogant a fashion as possible.

What a tool. I’m actually having difficulty telling whether I hate Lagorio or the Quest Master more, at this particular moment. Maybe they’re related…if NPCs can even have families.

“Hey, dick for brains,” Blazer’s already growling as he gets closer, and Lagorio’s chin juts a little higher, lolling his head back to look at us.

“Cute,” his lips split into a lecherous sneer. “You’ve picked up a stray. It’s _nice_ to see at least one party committed to ‘cooperation’ and ‘friendship’ and all of the things that are just _essential_ to being a team player.”

He can see how the other players are progressing. Does that mean they’re tearing each other apart out there, or is he just fucking with us?

Lagorio sits up, stretching theatrically, and begins to reach for the shining lenses over his eyes. I can’t tell how many of us flinch, but he laughs. “So what do you all want?” he spreads his legs apart, slightly, arms draping along the back of the bench. “You didn’t come at me on the offensive, so maybe you want to extend your invitation to ‘play nice’ to me, too?”

He’s angled that towards Knifebaby, and in case his meaning wasn’t clear enough, he’s moving his head to indicate he’s giving her a good, long up-and-down once-over.

She bristles.

“I would literally _love_ to kill you and rip out one of your eyes, but you’re actually not too far off the mark,” Blazer’s hands are at his sword again, and the simmering fury comes off of him almost tangibly. His voice is rougher, and it’s an unwelcome throwback to how angry he was in the presence of the bile monster.

“Is that so?” Lagorio looks more interested, but also ready to laugh in our faces.

“We want to make a deal with you,” I just don’t want to hear Blazer speak like that, again, but why the _fuck_ did I decide speaking up was the best way to go about it? I’ve got his attention, now. I really don’t want to have his attention. I should’ve kept my fucking mouth shut and tried to fade into the nonexistent woodwork…

“…What kind of a deal?” He sits up a little straighter, though. There are traces of the creep factor, but he looks like he might actually be regarding me seriously.

“We swap you something that you want for one of your eyes,” I reply evenly. “You’re an NPC. They can probably program a respawn into you, or something. You’ll turn up without even a scratch on you, later.” Probably. “There’s no downside for you.”

“Careful, _sugar_ , I could take that as an insult,” he’s dragging his ‘s’ sounds into shiver-inducing hisses again. “Implying I’m not real could hurt my feelings.”

“But I’m not wrong,” I hold firm. “So? It’s a no-lose scenario, for you. There’s got to be something that you want that we can deliver.”

I’m not naïve enough to be surprised by the answer, even if it confuses me.

“It’s the taint of lust, that I want.” He slips one hand underneath his belt, removing a plain-backed card between two fingers. He holds it between them, flipping it idly. “There’s a girl, you see. You boys know how that is,” he gives a short wave of his hand, gesturing towards Blazer and Gun in particular. The former narrows his eyes, but the latter gives a subtle, defensive kind of twitch.

“This bitch won’t give me the time of day, without it, so I want one of _you_ to get the taint, and bring it to me. Capice?”

I decide not to ask what the ‘taint of lust’ is. It doesn’t sound like anything good, but that’s roughly what I expected from this scumbag. I nod, and hold my hand out for the card.

If it winds up being a scam to land one of us in the sack, I’ll probably be the one defaulted to do it, by taking the quest…but as much as the prospect makes my stomach turn, it’s better me than anyone else.

The card doesn’t read that, though; the quest description sounds sketchy, but there’s no implicit requirement that one of us will have to sleep with him.

‘ _The Look of Love: Get the taint of lust from the carrier, Freya, to help Lagorio woo the one he has his eye on.’_

“…And then you’ll give us your eye?” I say cautiously, holding off on tucking the quest card into my cleavage until I know he won’t be looking.

“That’s right,” the mirrored lenses of his goggles gleam, and I almost wish – just for a split second – that I could see his eyes to gauge whether or not he looked like he was lying.

Gemma kept her word, though, and we sure as hell have nothing else to go on.

“Where’s Freya?”

“In the Giver’s Square, but she’ll be in hiding,” Lagorio actually sounds to be cautioning us. “You’ll know her by the true face she can’t hide. In her reflection.”

It’s a riddle, but a fairly straightforward one, and I’m grateful in the most  _bizarre_ way that Lagorio is at least straightforward about this quest shit. Less guesswork involved, so long as he’s telling the truth…and since this quest is for his benefit, I can’t see the merit in doubting him.

Taking a step back, I nod to him and mutter, “Fine. We’ll be back,” and then keep my eyes firmly averted from him as we begin to walk away, back in the direction we first came.

I’m already wracking my brain; there are a decent number of NPCs in the Square, but none that have particularly stood out to me, in the past. She wouldn’t look like any other one though, I guess – she’s new, like the others, so…

…It’s no good. I haven’t been paying the ones in the Square enough attention. Fuck.

“Her reflection,” I muse under my breath, and glance back at the others. I’m about to ask if any of them have ideas as to how to haul around a giant mirror, but it appears I’m off to a slower start in the mental race.

They’re already stealing glances at Gun’s armor-clad body. It’s bloodied and scuffed, but still reflective enough to serve our purpose.

“Guess you should keep in front?” I suggest to him, and he gives a grim little nod.

“…Do you think this taint-thing is an actual, like…quest object?” Silversun asks. “That’s how it would be, if it's like how the game was before…”

“No idea,” I confess.

“The game mechanics have held up this far, and the only thing that’s been an exception has been Gemma’s hair,” Newts adds to the discussion. “I sure as hell _hope_ it’s an item.”

“What would it be, if it isn’t…?” Whiteflower has the look of someone who both does and really doesn’t want to know the answer, and even though there’s an aura of disinterest around Knifebaby, she’s got something vaguely akin to Flower’s expression.

“Let’s try not think too hard about it, yeah?” I suggest, and I don’t let myself go against my own advice.

The Giver’s Square seems bigger than ever, when we arrive, even though I know that isn’t the case. Everything seems more overwhelming when we have a search going, but letting that hit me just makes me stall.

“She’s disguised, so we should check literally every NPC possible,” I try not to look towards the center of the square, “except probably the Quest Master.”

I honestly just don’t want to be anywhere near him, and knowing that asshole, he’ll start  _talking_ once we get close. I don’t have it in me to waste time letting him piss me off.

“So we go around the Square,” Newts proposes. “Counter-clockwise, making our way closer to the center as we go. Probably the most time-efficient way of checking them all.”

“How do you know that?” Knifebaby snipes. “Maybe she’s close to the west side but close to the Master.”

“Except we don’t know that, and mathematically -”

“We’re not doing this,” I groan, my back up over Baby’s decision to drop the first part of my nemesis’s title. ‘Master’, ugh. “We’ll do what Newts said, let’s go.”

Baby rolls her eyes obviously, and she’d be so close to my last nerve if I didn’t have more important things to worry about.

We nearly cluster around Gun as we get near enough to the first couple of characters milling about, following him as he leads us around the outside edge of the area. He can’t bend his head enough to see their reflections well, so it takes a confirming look at any one of us before he knows to move on. None of us are sure how close to get, either; will the differences be subtle, or will we know immediately?

I’m already wondering if we’ve bypassed her as we approach the eastern side, but those concerns are put to rest. I see her, and curse myself out thoroughly for not thinking about her earlier.

From where I stand, she’s got thick blonde hair falling in luxurious curls and a pocket watch clipped to her bodice, and I remember seeing her before. She’s a new NPC, one that looks more like a player character with her golden-brown leather and olive green bustle, but even from a distance…she looks very, very different in Gun’s armor.

Notably, I can see the chains across her boots, locking up her legs and keeping them bound together. I can’t see where the chains connect, from under her short skirt, but I  _do_ see the way they keep her tethered to the concrete.

Her curls aren’t so vibrant, either, and the thickness and heaviness of them seems to come from dirt. The worst part by far, though, is her face, and the closer we get, the more details I make out.

Pus oozes out of the cracks in her lips, yellowish and dripping from her eyes, as well. Mucus has flaked as it dribbled down from her nose and leaked all the way over her chin, and there are bloody sores around her lips, little picked-apart scabs over her face and breasts. I get a good look at her chest just because her face is so unappealing, and I think I see swollen areolas peeking out from her corset, just as bloody and scratched at.

I look away from her reflection, at her disguise. She’s looking in that handheld mirror, again.

If I were her, I’d never want to look at my true face.

Blazer pushes Gun forward towards her, just a little, and it’s probably because he didn’t see her the same way that he takes the step. “That’s her…?” he questions in an undertone.

I grimace too obviously, in time for her to catch it when she looks our way with blank green eyes. “…Yeah, that’s her.”

If she takes offense, she doesn’t show it. Instead, her lips tilt in a gentle, inviting smile, and she curls her fingers to beckon us closer.

From the center of the Square, the Quest Master laughs.


	8. Chapter 8

I want to suggest we speak to her elsewhere, away from the two child NPCs seated on the bench by her, but the fact that she’s tethered to the ground effectively dashes my hopes of preserving their programmable innocence.

Freya is coaxing us over, eyes half-lidded now, and we don’t actually have the option of staying away. Despite being the only one of us to only see her as beautiful, Gun’s digging in his heels. Maybe the vibes she’s giving him aren’t exactly seductive; she seems as much of a predator as Lagorio.

“C’mon,” I mutter, taking him by the wrist and tugging slightly. “Let’s get this over with.”

He doesn’t say anything, but there’s still a heavy hesitation to his steps.

“Are you Freya?” Newts asks as we come close, and he’s giving multiple glances towards the two children, as well. It’s almost weird to think we might have the same reservations about speaking to this woman in the presence of fake kids.

“I am,” her voice disorients me for a second. It’s the same in tone and pitch as Knifebaby’s; further proof that our assassin is using a voice modifier…

Not that those are my priorities right now…

“There’s something you have that we need,” I don’t want to come right out and say that it’s for Lagorio. I don’t know why he couldn’t do this himself, and presumably the reason wasn’t _just_ to set up a quest. If it was, that seems unnaturally considerate of the guy.

Freya isn’t responding. I was kind of expecting her to reply with a sultry innuendo, or something.

“We need the taint of lust,” it feels even filthier coming out of my mouth, with her looking at me like that. There’s nothing in her eyes, really, but something’s coming across as so judgmental that I kind of just want to shrink into myself.

“I could be persuaded to give it to you, if you do something for me, first,” she purrs, and I want to sigh. Why can’t _anyone_ just make this easy, rather than stacking quest upon quest?

“What would we have to do?” I’m cautious.

She just repeats herself; “I could be persuaded to give it to you, if you do something for me.”

I turn slightly, looking back at the others, clueless. The last time I accepted a quest without knowing what it was, it worked out…arguably well, but there’s a better argument for ‘a disaster’.

“No choice,” Blazer mutters, shaking his head. “We’ve already signed onto this shit when we took the quest from shit-for-cologne.”

I loathe how inevitable this all feels. I round back on Freya and nod a bit more sharply than I meant to, “Yeah, fine, we’ll do it.”

“Good,” she smiles, and reaches up to scratch at the smooth expanse of breast that I know would actually look scarred and probably bloody, in the mirror. “Before I bestow my gift upon you, I must know; which of you carries the most shame?”

Collectively, we pause. ‘Shame’? What the fuck does she mean, ‘shame’?

I hold up a halting finger and look back at the others to find them exchanging similarly clueless looks. I’m already coming to a conclusion as our spokesperson, though, despite my spiteful temptation to direct Freya to Knifebaby and see what happens.

I just can’t put someone else in the line of fire, and god knows whatever her ‘gift’ is, it’s probably not good. I open my mouth to tell her that I’ll take it, what ‘it’ is.

But I don’t.

Or rather, I can’t.

Screaming pain runs through my jaw, and it clicks shut audibly. My voice doesn’t make it out of my throat, even though the need to yell in reaction is there.

The hair-wire won’t stop pulling, cutting right against the bone, and it doesn’t relent until I stop trying to speak.

Then it’s gone as abruptly as it came, and I’m left trembling.

Newts has a hand on my arm, and he’s murmuring by my ear, concerned, “Wings?”

I’m afraid of trying to talk again.

I shake my head stiffly, instead, and very tentatively test whether or not I can move my jaw. There’s no protest from the strings, when I rub at the hinges and carefully, as subtly as I can manage, mime speaking movement.

Nothing. Was it some kind of fluke?

“I…need a minute to think,” I choke out, and that doesn’t hurt either. I start to relax, a little.

Okay. So…volunteering myself seemed to be what wasn’t working for my new puppet master. That thought makes me grit my teeth, and out of a mix of desperation and anger, I try to offer myself again.

The pain’s damn near blinding this time, tugging and grinding against the end of  _every nerve in my jaw_ , and I immediately stop. My chest is heaving a little.

Shame. Who the fuck has the most shame?

Again, Baby presents herself as an option, in my mind. The design of her character, the berating and hatred for men; maybe that has roots that can be traced back to something she’s ashamed of. But, after she told me about what happened with her dad and the whole ‘House of Mirrors’ thing… Maybe she just had a really shitty father, in general.

There’s Blazer. The thing he may or may not have going with Whiteflower (I’m going with ‘may have’, really, since this whole experience has only had him acting even more protective of her) might be tearing him up. I don’t think her youthful avatar and her actual age are very far apart, and there’s obviously conflict about him and her…

With Gun, primarily, and that makes me think about character design again. The towering guy covered up in plain armor, and a hidden face –

“I think…” I start, before I realize it. “Probably Gun?”

“What?”

Gun looks jolted, and Freya sizes him up, momentarily diverted by her own grotesque reflection in his armor.

“What makes you think-…”

“Oh, yes,” she purrs, and she sounds more _alive_ than she did moments ago. “I feel your shame. It’s… _fierce_.”

She leans forward as much as she can manage with her feet tethered, grabbing him by the hand and drawing him as near to her as she can make him. For all his bulk and strength, Gunmetal doesn’t put up a fight.

Freya reaches up to his face plate with far more ease than she should even be able to – Gun’s so much taller, but she’s unearthly and beckoning. She pulls him down by the helmet and shoves the visor up, and before any of us can even try to see his face, she’s got him by the mouth, pus-leaking lips against Gunmetal’s.

He’s shoving her off, and blood spatters on the ground – it takes me a second to get past the stunned disbelief that makes my entire world feel off-balance, and then I realize he spat it out. A mouthful of blood, spewed onto the ground, and Gunmetal is hunched forward as he staggers away, hands protectively curled against his face and turning his back to her, to us. Like he’s hiding.

“Ken?!” Flower sounds a little panicked, trying to placate him as he’s started to shake. Freya runs the inside of her middle finger daintily under her lower lip.

“Spread my gift to five, within the Giver’s Square, and you shall have the taint of lust,” she smiles, and pulls the quest card out from between her breasts. There’s a streak of filmy, oozing red across the paper, but I’m too numb with dread to be disgusted.

The description echoes what she said, word-for-word, and it’s titled,  _‘Wanderlust.’_

Bile starts creeping up my throat at the implications, and despite the smile on Freya’s face, her eyes are cold and judging.

The little girl on the bench is staring up at me now, too, looking listless. I feel like she’s condemning me too.

I take a few steps back, trying to redirect myself towards Gun. He’s put more distance between himself and Freya and pulled the face plate back down, but his hands haven’t lowered, and there are several more bloody spots of spit in his wake. Flower’s wrapped both arms around one of his, murmuring something in a frantic whisper that I can’t hear.

No one seems to know what to say, and when watching Gun crumble gets to be too much, they all seem to default to staring at me instead.

As I get closer, I hear Flower shakily telling him, “…I th-think you have to… You have to take the helmet off, if you’re going to…”

“No,” his tone is too numb to sound like he’s really trying to argue. Like he knows it won’t amount to anything, anyway. “I can’t-… I don’t want to…”

“Gun…?” I reach out to touch his other arm, and his armor scrapes slightly when he flinches. “I’m… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know…”

“Stop looking at me.”

I take a slow, even breath. “Gun, I think you need to kiss-… Just five people, they can be NPCs, not even real-…”

“I _don’t want to_ ,” he sounds repulsed.

“It’s just a kiss,” I say weakly, like it’s supposed to console him, and I know it doesn’t matter what it ‘just is’. The blood, and the way he’s curled into himself, like he’s nauseated… I don’t want to make him do this.

“It’s the quest…” Flower’s blinking rapidly. “Ken, you’ve got to-…”

“ _Please_ ,” he interrupts her hoarsely. “I don’t want…”

It feels like insects are crawling up my back. He’s begging us not to force him, and I  _don’t want to force him._

“Please,” I implore right back. “We’ve got to get out of here. This will get us out of here.”

There’s a strange sound from behind the face plate; a little tapping sound, like moisture hitting metal.

Oh god.

Oh god, he’s crying. I think he’s crying. Gun gets angry, or annoyed – I’ve seen him be sarcastic or stoic or focused but I have  _never_ seen him or heard him cry, and he’s crumbling.

Whiteflower’s pulling away as though burned, her own tears not falling from her wide open eyes. I don’t think she’s seen him cry, either.

At an utter loss, I look back at the others, and come face to face with Hellblazer.

The way he’s looking at me is with a blend of disgust and relief. Like he’s thanking me for not volunteering  _him_ , to go through this. Like he’s blaming me.

Newts is looking everywhere but at Gun, and I almost hate him for it. I need him to look at Gun; I need him to look at  _me_ . Look me in the eye, give me a nod, or  _anything_ , so I know I’m not doing something unforgivable. I need him to confirm what the right thing is, and he isn’t doing that for me.

Silversun’s of no help, either, staring at the ground firmly like he wishes it would swallow him, and Knifebaby…doesn’t look like she could care less, one way or another.

I should resent Baby, not Newts. But the fact that she doesn’t care is, right now, more helpful to me than anything else is.

I lean in closer against Gunmetal’s arms. “I’m really sorry about all of this,” my voice is smaller than I can recognize.

He’s still trembling, as I consult with Knifebaby. The effects of stunning someone only lasts forty-five seconds or so, in player-versus-player battle…but it’ll keep him still long enough for us to knock him out.

She whips towards him, agile as a cat, and he’s slumped forward and still.

“H-Hellblazer, I need you to-…” I can’t seem to stop shaking. “I’m not strong enough to do it.”

In any sense of the word.

Everything feels as though I’m moving in slow-motion, watching from a distance. The hilt of Blazer’s sword connects with the back of his helmet, and he’s sent sprawling forward. It takes all of us – except for Whiteflower, we don’t let Whiteflower get involved with this, she watches – as we pick up Gunblazer and haul him aside, finding some privacy for him in an alley. It’s difficult, sitting him up against the stone wall. It’s strangely more difficult for me to remove Gun’s face plate.

His facial features are smooth; the default, on the character creation screen. There’s nothing remarkable, nothing that stands out. It’s like he was trying to hide everything about who he is, even before he had the armor.

“You’re stronger than me,” I plead with Blazer, kneeling by Gun. “Go, get NPCs. Just-…maybe you can-…force them on him-…”

“This is sickening,” Newts’ voice is heavy.

“I know,” I reply weakly. “Blazer, can you do it?”

“You’re asking me to be his pimp,” he growls, and he’s angry again, but I know it isn’t at me. He’s pacing slightly, hands flexing – Newts is taking my hand, helping me stand back up again, and I don’t actually know when Silver and Baby retreated, or where they went off to. Blazer doesn’t notice, and probably doesn’t care, head thrown back and swearing at the sky, “Fuck! This is too fucking fucked up-… _fuck._ ”

My grip on Newts’ hand tightens, and I let him lead me like a child out of the alleyway. I see the others, now, over with Whiteflower, speaking to her. Maybe keeping her distracted.

Blazer’s thundering out of the alley several steps behind, and he doesn’t go far. He grabs a young woman, yanking her by the arm, and she’s shockingly complacent until he gets her to the alley. Then there’s a shriek, and I think I hear her struggling. The sound of metal on metal, like Blazer’s drawn his sword.

I bury my face in my hands. I’ve never hated myself more than I do, right now –

There’s more screaming, and small hands shove at my back – the NPC woman is bolting from the alley, running away with hysterical tears streaming down her face.

“Oh, no,” Newts breathes, and I think it’s because he couldn’t think of anything more to say.

Blazer’s approaching me, and he’s pale. “We have a problem,” he’s grave. “Just the kiss isn’t working, Wings.”

No.

No, no, fuck no, I won’t do it, I won’t fucking do it –

No one’s going to talk me out of it.

No one’s going to talk me into it, either.

No one’s going to help me.

I don’t want to have to do this.

…And we’re going to die here, in this game, if I don’t.

“Just bring them to me, in a minute,” I’m not stammering anymore, but my voice is hollow. “I’ll handle the rest.”

Newts isn’t looking at me, again. Is he ashamed of me? Horrified? …Is he sorry that he isn’t making this easier?

Blazer lets out a breath, and he sounds the way I feel. “For what it’s worth,” he says slowly, “you’re just doing what you have to. I-… I should be the one to do it. But, Flower-…”

“She’d never forgive you, I know,” I don’t want to hear any more. His reassurances aren’t helping any more than Newts’ silence is. “Go on. I’ll try to get this done.”

I feel a little like a zombie as I wander into the alley, approaching Gunmetal. My own footsteps are echoing – or maybe I’m listening to Hellblazer head off to find me a victim. I don’t know for sure.

Gun looks so much smaller, like this. It’s uncanny and uncomfortable.

Crouching slowly beside him, I start by taking the face plate back into my hands, fixing it back over his face. I don’t want to leave him uncovered; ironic, since I know I have to strip him. I just.

I have to let him hide. I have to do him this single favor.

With his face covered again, he looks more  _right_ . More like my friend. I didn’t think it through; didn’t realize that would make this more difficult. But I don’t regret the gesture.

I do regret thinking about it as though I’m somehow making this  _better_ .

Gunmetal remains unconsciously slumped against the wall, providing me with a sturdy handhold as my legs stretch to straddle him in order to start removing the thick metal plates protecting him.


	9. Chapter 9

Five times.

The first two, and the fourth one, were women. That first girl, who’d run away screaming; Blazer had hauled her back, first. Maybe because he thought she’d already been hurt, or traumatized, and he was trying to lessen the spread. The damage.

The third, and the fifth, they were men. Equal opportunity for all. It was a little more difficult, but not as much as it could’ve been, if I hadn’t known the mechanics. How it was supposed to work.

It was just a bit more difficult to keep my balance while I sat up, behind them, and kept one knife against their jugular.

Weird. It’s not like they’re real. They had more to lose, this way, than if they just had me kill them, instead. Or maybe they didn’t.

Can they feel pain? Do they feel it like Gun does?

Even though every single one of them walked away bleeding, I still have my doubts. The doubts are a bandage over the burn of guilt.

There’s blood on Gunmetal, too. His thighs are sticky with it, his fingertips. Those shouldn’t be, but the heavy drops of red started to pool on the ground, and his hands have just been…limp, there.

My fingertips are bloody, too. And my palms.

I just don’t feel…right…rubbing it away. Washing it off. I don’t even think it can be washed away. They’re just…stained.

I don’t know how much time’s passed since the fifth one. No one’s come to get us, since the completion text flashed over my eyes. I think they might be like me, waiting on Gun to wake up. Maybe they’re waiting on me, actually, to come out on my own. Once I’m ready to show my face.

Which I don’t think I ever will be. But, that isn’t why I haven’t moved from where I am, collapsed against the opposite wall from Gunmetal.

I just.

I can’t leave him like this.

His head rolls slightly to one side, and I think he’s beginning to stir after several instances of false starts. I worry about the dent in his helmet, from where Blazer knocked him out. I wonder if there’s permanent damage done.

That was a stupid thing to think.

Something’s leaking from underneath the face plate, and he’s too groggy and aching to move fast enough. It catches the first spurt of vomit, and he’s scrambling to pull it up before heaving what little is in his stomach and spewing it onto the ground.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to speak at all, but my mouth is on auto-pilot.

“I…can’t be sorry enough…”

Robotically, he’s wiping his own puke off the metal, having nothing else to use but his hand, and starting to redress himself in armor. He shouldn’t look so vulnerable.

It takes him a while to speak, and in that time, the lack of words feels like something thick, heavy, and hurtful.

“How could you do that to me.”

It doesn’t sound like a question. I don’t think he has it in him to really…emote. Maybe he just doesn’t actually want to know ‘why’, because the only answer I can give is ‘ _I had no choice,_ ’ and that’s not good enough of a reason.

So I just say, “I’m so,  _so sorry_ ,” and know that isn’t worth jack shit, either.

He’s keeping his whole body turned away from me as much as he can, while he covers himself back up, but there are a few times he falters and brushes his hands frenetically over the blood, trying to clean it off with soiled hands. Tension pulls every muscle of his back taut.

And I just keep talking. Maybe because the silence is breaking me, or maybe I’m enough of a selfish bastard to need the comfort of excuses.

“It was like the strings – hair,” I mumble. “It was… We had to… S’the only way…”

I’m not convincing myself any more than I’m convincing Gun, and I feel like more of a monster than Gemma, or Lagorio, or that reeking beast, or even Freya.

He’s finished with his armor, but he doesn’t look any stronger or better protected, to me. I hate the way I’m looking at him like he’s weaker, when I know he isn’t. I can’t seem to help myself.

“Do you want me to leave?” I sound like a child, like I need to be told right from wrong. Further proof that, if anything, I’m the one that’s weak. Gun can’t even answer me, won’t look at me, and I’m forced to come to some kind of conclusion.

I should go. If it had been me-…

I’d want me to leave.

I find purchase against the wall, standing up and using the surface to lead me out of the alleyway. I steal a few glances back at Gunmetal, but don’t look for long. I don’t feel like I have any right to, and I’m afraid to know what my expression’s like.

What does he think that I’m thinking? Does he think I’m judging him for this?

It’s too bright, beyond the shade of the alley. I wince, narrowing my eyes and closing them for the first few steps I take back into the wide open space of the Square. I can hear the Quest Master’s tinkling, mocking laughter from here. I don’t think it’s directed at me, but I feel it in the pit of my stomach anyway.

Freya is visible to me before the rest of my group is, but they aren’t who I want to see yet, anyway. I head her way, picking up speed with every stride.

I have to get what we were promised, make this  _mean_ something.

The girl on the bench is looking at me again, and I really look at her this time. She looks more alive to me now; maybe it’s because I was just so close to so many NPCs, but they don’t seem so programmed, now.

The boy beside her looks similar, but he’s moving less artificially. His fingers are running over the pages of the large book, and I expect him to keep doing so until he lifts his head, too. There’s a milky sort of film over his eyes, and it should startle me.

I was wrong, about the little girl; he’s the alive one. Like Lagorio or Gemma.

I should have noticed before. Seen those blind eyes and demanded one of his. I should have seen him earlier.

Oh  _god_ if he really is like  _them_ , I could have avoided this –

Freya speaks to me, perhaps impatient with how long it’s taking me to engage her. “You’ve spread my taint,” is what she says in lieu of a greeting. “I can feel it.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on the boy’s face before he bows his head again, and he starts to return to running his fingertips gently over the braille of his book, just in time for the girl to mechanically turn to the next page.

Slowly, I move my head to only face the disguised woman. Freya is smiling at me, more vivacious with flushed cheeks and reddened lips that she continuously drags her tongue over. If I could see her for what she really is, I think I’d be sick. I almost might be, anyway.

“Yeah,” I sound cold, like I’m blaming her even a fraction of how much I’m blaming myself. “It’s done. So can we have it?”

“The taint of lust,” she scratches at her breast, then begins making a low, guttural sound at the back of her throat. My expression twists, repulsed, as she chokes up something glistening and red from the back of her throat; it looks almost like something crystal, if it weren’t so obviously organic, and she holds it delicately between her fingers as she plucks it from the end of her tongue.

“I will give this to my carrier,” she eyes me. “Won’t you bring him to me? I’d so like to see him off.”

“Just give it to me,” I deny her. I can’t make this worse for Gun by making him face her.

She looks at me distastefully, but acquiesces. Freya holds the  _thing_ out to drop into my hands, and I’ve never wanted to touch anything less, but I cup my hands to let her give it over.

It’s soft, like something rotten.

It takes me longer to access my inventory screen simply because I can’t concentrate, and when I manage to put it away, I will it to the space furthest away from everything else; healing potions, arrows, the hearts. I have this foreboding sense that it’ll infect anything kept too near to it, even though that’s ridiculous.

“Be sure to thank your friend on my behalf,” Freya laughs and cups one hand, waving me off like royalty. The blind boy lifts his head again, giving me a tiny wave like he’s mimicking her, even though he can’t possibly see it.

The front of my foot hits the ground more lightly than I knew it could, and I’m running from them both.

The others must have been waiting within sight of the alleyway. They’re crowded there, my departure probably their signal to gather.

Newts looks at me as I slow and stop several feet away from them, but he doesn’t approach me. Gunmetal is coming out of the alley.

To my surprise, he’s holding his head up. I don’t know how he has the strength to.

He doesn’t let Whiteflower get close, though, and that surprises me, too. I kind of want to say something, tell him to hold her or let her say something comforting because I can’t and he needs that, right now, but I don’t actually know  _what_ he needs. I say nothing.

I’m glad for Knifebaby’s callousness again when that detachment is what’s keeping her on-task. “Did you get the quest item?”

“I got it,” my voice had sounded bolder, when I was talking to Freya. Where did that nerve go?

Blazer takes Whiteflower’s hand as she backs away from Gunmetal, leads her away from him. He’s leading us back towards the west, and I follow farther behind everyone else for fear of feeling their eyes digging into my back. Both Newts and Silversun drag their steps a little, and I don’t know if it’s to avoid Gun, or because they want to talk to me.

Silver’s the latter, I find out when he waits long enough to fall into step with me.

“I think we should get really wasted, once we’re out of here,” he suggests quietly.

That is probably last on my list of things I expected him to say.

“Unless you’re legal age, though, we’ll need to get someone else to do the buying,” he goes on. “Just, all this… If we get out of here, I don’t think I’m ever going to want to be sober again.”

Condoning underage drinking sure as hell wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done.

“I’ll buy,” I offer on a heavy exhale, and Silversun breathes in deep through the nose, nodding.

“…I’m sorry, by the way,” there’s a pause before he speaks again, and I look at him blankly when he seems to think an apology is necessary. “Before, when you said I should come with you guys – I didn’t… I mean, initially, I was angry. You could have all killed me, but I was pissed because I was too scared to leave the Stacks and how stupid is that, right? But now-… This is what this game does, and if I didn’t die in there, who knows what might’ve-…”

He trails off. I think I might actually throw up.

“…I’m trying to do my part, because I don’t know what else to do, but you’re really doing everything you can to save us.” Silver’s talking to me like I didn’t just do something evil. “So… thank you.”

Silver’s an idiot.

Newts is eavesdropping, and not trying to be subtle about it. I look towards him, not sure if I’m asking for condemnation or affirmation, but what I get is the latter. He steps back to join us, takes my hand briefly in his.

Maybe it’s the fact that he always seem so  _adult_ , so understanding, but I want to talk to him about everything. Let words spew out before bile does, and I want it to be Newts that I talk to because he’s reasonable and won’t excuse me for what I did. But he  _will_ listen.

“Silver, can you give us a sec?” I squeeze Newts’ hand, a little. The healer looks between the two of us quickly and nods.

“Sure,” he’s still nodding when he picks up his pace, disarmed hands wrapping around either arm in a sort of self-hug.

Newts is watching me rather than where we’re walking. Trusting me to lead, I guess. “What is it?” He seems to get that I want this kept between the two of us, because even I can barely hear him.

The lump is back up my throat, forcing a few false starts to the conversation.

“I tried to volunteer myself, instead of Gun,” I’m almost wringing Newts’ hand, but he doesn’t bring it up or complain. “When I tried it, though…something happened, with the hair.”

“Gemma’s hair?” he clarifies gently, and I nod.

“I think it can…c-control me,” I stammer. There’s a very real chance Newts won’t believe me. Suddenly, _I’m_ having a hard time believing me. “I tried to talk and it wired my jaw shut. It hurt like a _motherfucker_ , and it just… It wouldn’t let me volunteer. I had to pick someone other than me, I didn’t have a _choice_ , even though it fucking _should have_ been me, Newts – at least then it’d have been no one’s fault but my own and fuck, maybe I could have even gotten into it, it’s not like I haven’t _wondered_ what it’d be like for a girl so, so I should have been the-…”

His eyes have steadily widened, and he tries to quiet me, but now that I’ve started… I can’t stop.

I’m crying like a child and the words just won’t stop, and my ability to whisper deteriorates.

“But instead I _did_ that and how am I supposed to live with myself? Fuck, how can I even be-… What the fuck right do I have? Gun’s the one who-… I shouldn’t be freaking out, he should be freaking out, he’s the victim, he’s the one I _did that to_ -…”

“Wings,” Newts breathes, and he stops me with a hand over my mouth. Cleaner hands than mine.

My voice was getting loud enough to slow everyone else down. I’m suddenly very aware of the fact that they’ve all stopped walking.

Gun is looking at me, now, and I’m mortified. Does he hate me?

He should hate me. If he doesn’t hate me, I’ll happily take over that for him.

“…S-… Sorry,” I choke. I don’t know if I’m apologizing to everyone, or just to him.

“Don’t fall behind,” Blazer’s still leading the pack, but he’s turned entirely around, facing me. I just nod, pulling away from Newts’ hand, wiping my eyes roughly against the back of my forearm.

We resume our procession. Newts takes my hand back, gripping just as tightly as I’d been holding his.

“We’ll keep an eye on what that hair does to you,” he tells me. I wish he hadn’t believed me. It actually frightens me, that he does. I’m still grateful in a warped way, though.

New paranoia grips me, instead, and I’m audibly uneasy, “Do you think anyone heard me say that I’m actually a…?”

It takes him a moment, but he shakes his head slowly. “No. You were still whispering, at that point.”

“…Could you not tell them?”

“I won’t.”

It makes no sense at all, but I feel like they’ll hate me more harshly if they know that I’m a guy, and that I as good as raped Gun. I can’t tell Newts that. I’m a little glad that he isn’t making me explain.

“Thanks…”

Newts doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re approaching Lagorio. My realization that I have to play spokesperson again is delayed; I’m the one carrying the godforsaken quest item, so I have to move forward.

He’s leaning forward with his elbows resting against his knees, surveying us as we make the march over to him. Even though I can’t remember ever being to a funeral – both my grandfathers died when I was too young to remember either of them, and both grandmothers are alive with no signs of life slowing them down – I feel like I’m heading to one, now.

“Did you get it?” Lagorio demands, hands sliding up his thighs to brace as he gets up smoothly.

“I have it,” I’m taking it out of my inventory and holding it gingerly, only to show it to him. I jerk my hand towards my chest when he smirks and steps toward me, hand outstretched. “Eye first. Then you can have it.”

“I could kill you,” his lip curls.

I re-add the taint of lust to my inventory. “Except now you can’t get it.” I have no idea where I’m finding the balls, for this.

I just can’t let this be for nothing. I can’t give him the opportunity to back out of a deal.

“You give us your eye, and I give you the taint thing and complete this transaction.”

“Clever girl,” his expression sours. “Then whose eye am I taking?”

I swallow until the hard lump in my throat goes down, and I think it was made of ice; it feels like something cold landed in my stomach, even though I vaguely expected this. “That wasn’t outlined in the original deal.”

“We’re _trading_ , aren’t we?” he snaps. “Eyes are delicate. Mine are a _prize_. One of _your_ eyes isn’t worth what one of mine is, but with the taint of lust thrown in, I’m willing to be _generous._ Besides…you’re going to need somewhere to keep it.”

I’m conscious of the hair against my bone, again.

“So empty out an eye socket for me, _sweetheart_ ,” he hisses.

There’s only a second that passes, maybe less, before one of us speaks.

“I’ll fucking do it.”

Blazer sounds like his old self. Challenging, hostile, leaving no room for argument. My head turns so fast I nearly get whiplash, gaping at him like I’ve got something to say.

His expression is stony, brushing off Whiteflower’s shaking hands. There’s only a single hitch in his gait, and it happens when he passes Gunmetal, who’s hunched into him and turned away from all of us again. It hits me; this is how Blazer’s choosing to atone.

By ripping out his  _fucking eye_ .

Lagorio doesn’t seem to know whether he’s satisfied or not, but he claps a hand against Blazer’s shoulder like they’re old friends. “That’s what I like to see,” he purrs. “A real man knows how to step up.”

Blazer’s shoulders go back and his chin juts out aggressively. “How do we do this? I’m assuming you’re no fucking surgeon.”

“You’re going first,” Lagorio informs him with a thin smile, shoving at his shoulder to steer him onto the bench. Blazer only seems to resist so he can sit down willingly, on his own terms.

He’s not even wavering. Not even as Whiteflower’s knees give out and she crumples, staring at the two of them absolutely horror-stricken.

“I’m going to need to borrow someone’s knife,” Lagorio mentions with the air of someone asking for the time. Automatically, I clench mine like I’m holding it in its sheath, as though it’s going to independently leap out without me physically restraining it.

Unsurprisingly, Knifebaby flips one of hers, wielding it like she’s about to stab Lagorio. She isn’t stupid enough to take it by the blade and offer it handle-first…to Blazer, instead.

Good. She’s cold, but she’s still sticking by us.

Blazer reaches up to take the handle, but his hand catches against hers, going straight through the weapon itself.

“That isn’t compatible with your class, warrior. Don’t go trying to take weapons that aren’t yours,” Lagorio sneers, and pinches the flat of the blade to pry it away. He takes it too fast for her to slice his hand, if that was her intention.

Knifebaby’s eyes narrow to slits, and she takes a large step back, flipping her ponytail over one shoulder as she turns away to avoid watching.

I should do the same. I should  _not_ be watching this, but for reasons beyond my current scope of thinking, I’m not looking away yet. Lagorio leans forward, muttering, “Keep really still. If you don’t jerk around, maybe I can get the whole thing out intact.”

I can hear Hellblazer breathe. In. Hold it for one, two, three. Exhale. His breaths are the only thing shaking.

Lagorio waits for the span of several pounding heartbeats as he figures out which angle he seems to want to approach from, and then –

The tip of the blade isn’t narrow enough. It splits the crease of his eye, dark blood floods the well of his lower lid, I think the cornea itself is cut, Lagorio lurches forward to squeeze Blazer’s head in the crook of his other arm to hold him still and I come to my senses far too fucking late, I don’t look, the heels of my palms are pressed against my eyes until they throb but  _oh god I can still see it_ .

Tearing through the membrane, tip poking through the eyelid, piercing and ripping it like a pin through paper.

Blazer’s not screaming. The ragged, choked sounds he’s making to keep the screams down are worse.

Trembling arms lock around me, pulling me against them; brush of the cowl, shaking violently and the gasps, it’s Newts. I think he’s hiding his face against my back. He saw, too.

I hear heavy footfalls and a crash of a body hitting the ground, and have no idea who tried to run away.

I don’t know how much time passes, but suddenly Lagorio is saying, “You’ll want to staunch that bleeding,” and then following it up with an unimpressed, “Now, when did you lose consciousness?”

My hands slip, and I look.

I glimpse the broken eye in Lagorio’s dark-stained hand – it’s split, ruined, thick fluid and some kind of revolting mass, something like a frayed bloodied root –

I think Silversun’s the one who’s fled, and I’m the only one stupid enough to be looking. Except for Whiteflower.

Her expression is slack, on her knees where she fell, back curved.

She watched the whole thing.

I start to cover my face again, dizziness overtaking me and blackness swooping in to follow.


	10. Chapter 10

The first comprehensible thought I have is that this makes for the second time I’ve passed out. I should be embarrassed. How weak am I? Fainting like an anemic, after everything that’s happened.

And then I remember the ‘everything that’s happened’, a full-body cold shiver assaulting me, and I’m scared to open my eyes.

Someone’s tapping the side of my face with stiff fingers, the light slaps only enough to startle me. I really deserve to be hit harder than that. My eyes open, and I’m gazing up at Newts, who looks back with half his expression hidden by the cowl.

“It’s finished,” he murmurs.

Without yet sitting up, I tuck in my chin to tilt my head. Blood is streaked all down Blazer’s front, the goggles he wears now lowered over his eyes. They’re dark enough to hide his eyes completely – or whatever mangled mess is left – but they don’t cover a wide enough span to hide the damage.

The left side of Blazer’s face looks like a war zone. There are thin, jagged scars scored into his cheek and over the bridge of his nose. Healed.

Whiteflower is sitting unflinchingly on the bench with Blazer’s head resting against her, white as a sheet and holding him until he regains consciousness.

“About time you rejoin the rest of us,” I hear Lagorio before I see him. Newts helps me to sit up enough to see him leaning against the lamppost, lenses shielding his eyes the same way. There are no scars on his face, though.

“Did you-…” I’m about to accuse him of not following through, but he dismissively waves a hand.

“He’s got it in his eye socket. He’s never looked better. Wouldn’t you agree, sweetheart?”

For a moment, I think he’s talking to me, but Flower lifts her head just slightly. She doesn’t answer, though.

Out of mistrust, I check the quest;  _‘Unlocking Doors: Two of four artifacts obtained.’_

“So now it’s time for you to show me yours,” he extends his arm towards me without turning his head, palm rotating to face upwards. “The taint.”

There was a time when my life wasn’t horrifying, and back then, I would have replied with something immature and debatably in bad taste. The smart-ass impulses I used to get a kick out of have been pretty thoroughly beaten out of me.

I remove it from my inventory, grimy and weary enough that I no longer give a damn about the repulsive way it feels or the stain it leaves on my fingers.

Lagorio’s nostrils flare. “Bring it  _here_ ,” he hisses impatiently.

Silversun, somewhere behind me, whimpers like he thinks I shouldn’t hand it over. It’s with some detachment that I note he didn’t abandon us completely, after all.

Ill-advised or not, we’re too close to never having to deal with this bastard again for me to hold onto the quest item and risk everything. I get up, testing my ability to stand independently while Newts is still nearby. If my legs give out like a newborn foal, at least he’ll probably catch me.

They don’t, so I walk forward, keeping the taint of lust carefully cupped until I can gently let it roll from my hand to his. His thin lips curl in pleasure, and I receive the alert that  _‘The Look of Love’_ quest is done.

His nostrils are flaring again as he cups the disgusting thing against his chest, like he’s sniffing me out. “Now get lost, all of you,” he commands disdainfully.

I don’t think any of us have qualms with that, but I look to Blazer. The only one strong enough to heft him around while he’s passed out is Gunmetal.

I look to the warrior in question, and have no idea how to request it of him.

I wind up not having to. Flower is lifting her head, face drawn and making her appear older than I think she should ever look. They seem to have some sort of silent exchange, and Gun lifts Blazer off the bench, holding him over his shoulder.

“Dante’s Manor,” I don’t know why I’m suggesting we go there, or why it sounds more like an instruction than a question. Belatedly, I figure out it’s because I’m scared to see that blind-eyed boy in the Square, and it’s the only place we have left to go.

I don’t even know if we have the necessary quest to get in there, but everyone else seems to feel the way I do. We’d rather go and discover it’s locked than spend more time hunting around the Square, under the laughing gaze of the Quest Master, in proximity to the deceitful presence of Freya.

This time I don’t lag behind the others as we walk, leading the way and pretending I’m not affected by the constant creeping feeling up my back. We’re out of the west side and walking just around the edge of the Square, avoiding crossing through it to get to the northern part of the virtual city.

The manor looks to be only two stories high with an attic; most of the height comes from the intricate spires topping the gabled roof, oriel windows jutting forward from the second floor and ivy growing up the latticework. We’re all familiar with the old house, having each come here to scour the grounds for a hidden quest, but there’s something new around the porch, now.

Empty flowerbeds. It looks like someone was digging something up, in the soil, or perhaps burying something instead. I can’t tell for sure, but it seems a pretty clear indicator.

“The last one’s here,” Flower murmurs, kneeling down briefly to sift her fingers through the dirt. “…Should we just…walk in?”

“Seems like a violation of privacy,” Silversun mumbles unthinkingly.

“What does that matter?” It’s the first thing I’ve heard Gun say since we left the alley. His tone is vacant but pierces me like a hollow-point bullet.

I’m temporarily inert, unable to suggest we just barge inside. There’s this weirdly silent moment in which I’m almost certain they’re all thinking the same thing, some unifying impression or intention that I’m not in on. There’s a chance it’s my guilt at work, but I wouldn’t feel right asking for confirmation either way.

“I… Just, maybe we shouldn’t go in yet, with Hellblazer in his…um, condition,” Silversun trips and hesitates over the sentence so many times that it’s a wonder he gets it out. “If something’s home and we don’t have our warrior-…”

“‘Something’,” Flower echoes absently.

“There isn’t much point in waiting,” Baby sounds bored, but part of me thinks Silver has a point. Blazer’s our strongest offence – or was, before.

Who the hell knows how he is, now. Can he even see? Is game magic able to heal even that…?

Either way, with Blazer unconscious, that takes our tank out of commission. I look towards Newts for some kind of opinion, but find him stepping back to gaze up at the second story windows, brow furrowed with a look of sharp, uneasy concern.

“What is it?” Shit, does he see one of the monsters, or-…?

“I hear something,” he sounds deeply troubled. “Do any of you hear that?”

I try to concentrate on hearing, preemptively shaking my head. I’m not sure what I’m even supposed to be listening for. No one else looks to have any idea what Newts is talking about, either, but he still looks incredibly focused.

I guess if I’m going to put his concern to rest, we don’t have much more time to waste. …Which technically, we never had.

“…Right,” I mangle the single syllable as I take the porch steps two at a time, “let’s go in, then.”

Whiteflower needs to be nudged into reanimation, a look on her face like she’s a million miles away even when she’s walking. I grip the doorknob and give it more violent of a turn than I need to; it clicks and swings open without me even having to push at it.

I’ve never seen a house like this in real life, where the front entrance leads straight into a wide-open parlor…but the lighting is dim, and damn near everything is destroyed. The table is destroyed, crushed beneath a fallen chandelier, and the cushions of the chairs and loveseat are destroyed.

But there are worse things in here. So much fucking worse.

Sprawled out on her back, not two feet away from us, is a woman with her chest and stomach torn wide open. It’s both cleaner and more vicious than the wounds I’ve seen before – that I’ve inflicted myself, actually. Someone was going for the heart.

From the looks of things, they found it. There are hollow spots, gaping cavities in her abdomen and beneath her still-intact ribcage.

There’s a trail of blood from the woman’s shadowed corpse, dry by now, streaking across the floor and up the curved staircase off to the right side of the room.

The horrific finishing touch is that I can hear what Newts was listening so intently to, now, and I just don’t have it in me. If it means what I think it does, I just…can’t.

Somewhere in the manor, a baby is crying.

Newts is already trying to push past me, alert and a little wild-eyed, now, and the sound seems to have awakened something in Whiteflower, though just barely. It might be the dead woman before us, though, and she’s regarding her with confusion as she slips through the doorway.

“Petals…”

Newts is still tensed up, and doesn’t seem to hear her. Those of us that heard her give her fleeting looks, and even though I think I already know, I ask. “What is it, sweetie…?”

She’s still numb enough not to wonder why I need to ask, I guess. “The ground, covered in petals,” she murmurs. “So was she the flower? Are we too late?”

“…We’ll find out,” I gently take her wrist and glance back at the others and say the single phrase I thought I’d never be stupid enough to utter: “We should split up and search the house.”

“Are you high?” Knifebaby spits. “That’s dangerous, we don’t know what did this,” she gestures severely at the corpse.

“Yes, we do,” I match her austerity. “People like _us_ did that, and we’re in quest mode. This house isn’t that big, and Blazer’s still in no condition to be dragged around. So…we split up. Gun, you stay here with Blazer, alright?”

I don’t expect him to answer, so when he nods curtly and says, “Sure,” audibly enough for me to catch, I’m a little startled.

“Right… Newts and I will take Flower upstairs. So, Baby, you and Silversun take a look around the first floor and call for us if anything happens.”

I can’t pinpoint where the crying is coming from, but I hope it isn’t upstairs.

It seems more likely.

Newts is ahead of me, again, going up the stairs quickly. I guide Flower as hastily as I can manage, and her eyes are following other things, checking behind her every so often, letting me guide her. I don’t give my surroundings the same kind of attention, assuming she’s looking back at Gun and Blazer, or maybe our remaining two teammates as they take off to check the others rooms.

The staircase is taller than I would have imagined, and the second floor is comprised mostly of closed doors. The bloody trail ends in front of a door with a plaque, curly script reading ‘Marigold’.

Underneath the sound of crying, a low voice is humming – it’s a fractured tune with something very vaguely comforting about it, like it’s a song I’ve heard before, but I can’t place it for the life of me. I’m not trying very hard, though, glancing at Newts and seizing his forearm with my free hand before I can really be sure why.

He has a hand clenching the front of his robes, fingers gripping black folds in front of his abdomen and staring at the plaque. “It’s a nursery,” his voice is thin, throat constricted.

Flower is slipping out of my grasp to open the door.

“Wait –”

The nursery door opens. The room inside is much larger than I expected, and there isn’t only one cradle. Each one has a canopy, hiding the children resting inside – if there actually are any in there. Only one of them seems to be crying, and she – or he – is in the pallid arms of a very robust man in a dressing gown, thick hair the color of rust. He’s forced to cradle the bundle in his arms awkwardly, as both hands are twisted backwards, facing the wrong direction. His feet are the same. I’d think they’re broken if he weren’t wiggling his fingers like he’s tickling the crying child, humming that tune.

I don’t think he’s noticed us yet. Newts is staring at the pastel-striped baby blanket he’s wrapped the child in with his mouth hanging open slightly, looking  _ruined_ .

“Newts?” I hiss, but I don’t think he’s even hearing me.

“Emma…?”

I didn’t realize until right then, hearing how thick his voice is; is he crying?

“Newts,” I’m urging him a little now, freaked out and looking rapidly between him, and Flower; she doesn’t seem to know what to do, standing there stock-still and staring blankly forward.

The large man, not shockingly, hasn’t waited for us to engage his attention. He smiles quite pleasantly, contorting one arm to hold one finger up to his lips to gently shush us, indicating the crying baby. I don’t understand how he’s keeping balanced when he walks forward, gait rolling and strange as he shifts his considerable weight from the ball of his foot to the heel in front.

How in the hell…

“It’s not time, yet,” he informs us gently, a complete non-sequitur as far as I can understand what’s happening. The only thing that’s absolutely sure is that Newts is crying silently and I don’t have a goddamn clue what to do to help him.

Flower is backing up several steps away from the door, and he gives her a tiny, approving little nod.

“Just bring her to me, when you’re finished,” he has this light tone, like he’s speaking to one of his own children, while he aims that statement to Flower. Slowly, he closes the door to close with a soft click, and I’m no less perplexed than I was before.

“ _Wings!_ ”

That was Silver.

From downstairs, his deep baritone reverberates so loudly that he doesn’t sound very far away at all, and it jolts me. I tug at Whiteflower’s sleeve and shift my grip down to Newts’ hand, hauling them after me as I practically fly back down the stairs.

Silversun doesn’t stop calling for me, leading me right to them. They found the kitchen, Knifebaby crouched in front of an open pantry door.

There’s a considerable amount of blood in here, too.

“What happened?” I gasp, faintly winded by panic; Newts and Flower are close behind, the former still holding a hand firmly against his abdomen.

“We found the crying baby,” Knifebaby’s staring into the dimness of the storeroom, “and her daddy.”

I immediately think of the man upstairs, but I’m wrong. There’s a man just inside the doorway, an empty-chested heap, torn open just like the woman.

Not  _exactly_ like her – his stomach is intact, untouched.

There’s a heavy, rich smell of alcohol in here; it’s more like a wine cellar than a proper pantry, smashed wine bottles on the floor and splintered, jagged shards of glass littered amongst the drying purple stains. There’s a table and two tall-backed antique chairs by it, and for reasons beyond me…that’s where she is.

She’s a squirming bundle, a bright mane of golden-red hair on her head.

“That’s her,” I hear myself say. “Marigold.”

Newts is trying to get in.

“We can’t get through and we don’t know why,” Knifebaby tells us a moment late, as Newts flattens both hands against a barrier we can’t see. “I tried throwing a knife in there too, but like it even mattered… Even if it did get through, it’s not like I could’ve cut out her-…”

“S-stop,” Newts has lost all his composure, all the steadiness I admire, and seeing him fall apart makes the entire situation even less real. “Please…”

Baby surveys him with narrowed eyes, but seems to conclude that she doesn’t care, standing up gracefully and walking away to the other end of the kitchen. Silversun’s giving us a tiny bit of space, gnawing his lip to shreds.

Tentatively, I test the barrier with my own hand, not in the least surprised when I can’t get through.

I already know which of us can, and I don’t want to say it. I can practically hear Blazer, in my head: ‘Try harder. We can’t let her go in there.  _We’ll figure out something else, don’t fucking let her in there._ ’

I don’t notice that I’m staring at Flower until she’s shrinking into herself and looking back at me, silently asking ‘What?’

“You have to go in,” I regret saying it. Blazer will kill me. Blazer _should_ kill me. “It has to be you, none of the rest of us can.”

She doesn’t question why I think she could get through where none of the rest of us could; she just gives the cellar door a resigned look of trepidation, and confirms that I’m right.

She steps over the body, and whispers, “Petals. They’re only flowers.”

“That’s right, sweetie.” I wish Newts hadn’t just sobbed. I wish I saw things the way Flower’s seeing them, or that I just didn’t know. I hate lying. I hate doing this. “They’re only flowers.”

The staff on her back doesn’t allow for cutting the child open, but she has a thought about the broken bottles, leaning over and carefully picking up one sharp curve of glass.

I’m so tired of this. If I could have put anyone else in there, I would have.

I’m sure I would have.

We all have to make sacrifices. Do terrible things. This is just what Whiteflower has to do.

I want to quit this game.

Whiteflower leans over the table, and I hear her breathe in, just as Newts holds his breath in fear.

The crying hits a shrill pitch and stops, the glass plunged through the baby’s chest.

Newts’ knees hit the wooden floor, the most anguished sound I’ve ever heard out of anyone clawing up from his throat. His hands are against his abdomen, curling into himself – he’s crying, and Whiteflower’s knees are shaking so badly that she has to sink into one of the chairs while she pulls the tiny heart free.

I feel like I’m in third person perspective, watching the two of them, watching myself not react. I’m dissociating, and I wonder the way an observer would; is this what’s broken me?

Worse is the flood of logic that’s coming at me. Idiot, the baby wasn’t chained down to the table. Idiot, the table wasn’t glued to the floor.

Idiot, you could have been the one to do this. Not Whiteflower. I could have.

I just didn’t want to.

I come back to the moment, and dig my nails back out of my palm.

Flower is ghostly pale, staring down at the tiny heart in her hands and weaving back and forth on the chair, not enough to risk knocking her off of it. She’s like a lit candle; a breeze might force more movement, but in the stillness of the room, it’s only barely there.

I don’t know if she’s still seeing it as a flower.

‘ _Darling Valentine: four out of four flowers obtained.’_

What?

The notification is wrong.

That should be ‘quest complete’.

“Flower… C’mon, you’ve got to get out of there,” I try to coax her out, but she doesn’t raise her head. The way she’s rocking has shifted, back and forth, self-soothing without it having even a remote affect. Is she in shock?

She’s got every goddamn right to be in shock…

Newts is still on the floor, and I turn to him instead, trying to urge him back onto his feet. “Newts,” I plead a little. “C’mon… I need you, right now, we’ve all got to pull together… Th-this isn’t done…”

The little sob he lets out is frail and breakable, loosening his grip on his robes just a little. He lets me take his arm, pull him off the floor and press him against the wall. Both my hands hold his shoulders firmly, pinning him to the wall –

I think I might be more hysterical than I surmised, or just more despicable. For an instant, I wonder if kissing him might snap him out of it. Or snap me out of it, maybe.

Just the fact that he’s standing seems to be helping him, though, and from the direction of the parlor, I hear heavy footsteps coming from the hallway. My head jerks to the side as Knifebaby shows Hellblazer and Gunmetal in. I hadn’t even noticed she left.

Gun’s presence makes me let go of Newts abruptly, shame bubbling up in my stomach for thinking, however briefly, about…

And Blazer, he looks…terrible. His face is more drawn, the scars more starkly visible. His eyes are still covered; I can’t see what condition they’re in, but if the eye still can do what Lagorio’s could, I don’t want to check.

“Flower?” Blazer’s never sounded so cautious before as he approaches the wine cellar. “Addi?”

Fractionally, she lifts her head.

“…It was just an NPC, Addi,” he puts both hands against the door frame, leaning heavily into them. How long has he been conscious for? “Come on… Just come to me.”

Very slowly, she’s getting up, holding the heart in one hand. She needs to run her hand against the back of the chair, towards the wine racks, keeping herself upright until she can collapse through the unseen barrier and lean heavily into Blazer, holding Marigold’s heart to her chest. Over her own.

From behind her, a shock of auburn hair and a too-long sleeve peek out, the tip of the copycat’s covered hand stroking the side of her face.

She twitches; doesn’t scream. Blazer has her by the waist and drags her several feet back, snarling, “Where the  _fuck_ -…?!  _You_ -…”

The Master look-alike with his unnaturally large grin and his overlong jacket just tilts his head, arms outstretched like he’s expecting a hug. Shaggy bangs are hanging into eyes that I physically can’t seem to meet, and I can’t remember what his hair color used to be, but I’m sure – it wasn’t red before.

Was it?

Flower is practically vibrating, shaking so intensely it’s flat-out frightening. Gun’s hand is on his sword, but Blazer can’t reach for his so long as he’s the only thing keeping the little healer upright.

Silversun’s gone several shades paler. He’s never seen Smiles before, I remember.

This is why the quest isn’t over.

“We have to give him the bouquet, I think,” I’ll think about how the hell the copycat got into the cellar without a single one of us seeing. I’ll do that, later. I’ll worry. It’ll eat at me. Not right now. I can’t handle it, right now. “Flower-… Addi? Give me the heart… Blazer, I need the one you have…”

The copycat is trembling all over, but it doesn’t seem to be for any discernable reason. His hands are still out and waiting, but he’s gyrating like he’s mimicking Flower, smile stretched even wider than before – it’s a trick of my tired eyes, that makes it look like it extends beyond his face.

I open my inventory, letting that take over my vision for the length of time it takes for me to remove one flower after another –

And they are flowers. Wilting and short-stemmed.

“…Addi?” I croak. “Is it still a flower?”

She’s quiet, lacking the capability to speak, but she peers past Blazer’s arm to look at me and slowly shake her head.

The drooping iris and budding marigold are passed to me, and I hold the four flowers together, staring down at them as I pass them carefully to ‘Smiles’.

The bouquet is pretty.

‘ _Darling Valentine: quest completed.’_

The copycat’s slipped off into the shadows of the cellar without me even being able to keep track of the movement. Blazer is watching me now, I think. In turn, I watch Newts.

He’s testing whether or not the barrier is still in place, hand passing through the doorway at last. He steps inside.

“What are you doing?” My reaction is immediate. “That thing’s still in there.”

“I need to get her out,” he articulates every word purposefully, quietly, and strides in without hesitation. I’ve frozen up too badly to follow.

Newts removes his cowl, laying it out to wrap the bloody, motionless – I can’t think of her as a baby. It. The tiny corpse gets wrapped up snugly, and he holds the little carcass like a natural-born father. It’s too bizarre of an image for me to process, and the truth makes my chest sting.

I scour the corners and shadows for Smiles, but if he is really in there, he’s blended to the point of invisibility. Newts carries the bundle out, eyes flickering from the once-child’s face to mine.

“That man, upstairs,” he reminds me gravely. “He said to bring her, when we’re finished.”

“Man upstairs?” Baby interjects accusingly. “What man? You didn’t mention anything.”

“We didn’t have time to.” I don’t have the energy to sound argumentative back at her. “…I think he’s one of the monsters we have to-…”

Newts nods, and I don’t go on.

“We’ll go,” Newts tells them listlessly. “Wings and I. The rest of you… Just wait down here. The moment we can leave this place, we should.”

“Stay on guard,” my aside is mostly to Blazer, and he nods. Went without saying; he’s probably thinking about the same thing I am. The copycat, the way he just vanished. The fact that it still feels like we’re being watched, now.

“We’ll be by the door,” he replies belatedly, and we mobilize, Newts and I splitting off from the others to go back upstairs.

The nursery door is open, now, and the man’s deformed arms are empty. He gives us this look of absolute understanding, when we draw near, fingers crooking rapidly like a kid asking for candy he knows he’s a second away from being given.

Newts probably doesn’t mean to transfer it as carefully as he does, supporting the limp head with the crook of his arm and hands as the NPC takes it from him.

“I’ve been waiting for _quite_ a while for this little one,” he sounds reproachful, like we did him a disservice. He turns, the movement awkward but unhurried, murmuring soft affectionate things I can’t make out to the swaddled body.

I don’t know what I mean to ask, but it comes out as, “Who are you?”

“Call me Alan,” he bends at the waist, gingerly placing the dead child into a crib.

‘Alan’. It’s such an unusually usual name that I stare.

“Now, I believe I have what you need, don’t I?” he straightens back up, looking at the pair of us.

“Do you?” I repeat blankly, if only because I feel someone like we didn’t do enough. There’s a catch, or it’s a trick. There has to be more to it than him just…providing what we need without going through a lengthy quest for him.

Maybe the quest we just finished was his.

He’s drawing back a canopy and pulling the pastel-striped blanket out of the crib, carrying it over to Newts. “Don’t I?”

Newts takes the lumpy swath from him, jaw clenched tightly.

“I imagine you know the trick to it by now,” Alan tilts his head forward, tone soft and conspiratorial. “You’ll need to swallow as much of it down as you can manage.”

“What?” I’ve missed something. I’m disgusted, nonetheless.

“The blood,” he pulls back, backwards hands resting against his massive stomach. “I assume it’s not for _you_.”

As though in expectation, the hair-wire pulls a little at my jaw.

Slowly, Newts unwraps the baby blanket. As it shifts, the arrangement that had to have been so carefully done comes apart and reveals the stains; it’s blood-soaked. Drenched.

And the bundle it’s enveloping is little more than a mangled, vaguely humanoid  _thing_ of tissue, translucent skin. Blood. A lot of blood.

Somehow, Newts doesn’t gag, scream, drop it. Any of the things I might’ve done, in his place. He stares at it, looking sick, and starts to raise it higher.

“ _Don’t_ -…”

“We all do what we have to,” he turns away from me, a little, and holds the –

It’s against his mouth, and his eyes screw tightly shut, and I can hear him sucking at the blood.

The bile I managed to keep down for this long doesn’t make it past that. I throw myself towards the door, holding the frame and swallowing it forcibly back down. I don’t have enough left in my stomach to let myself lose it. It burns down my throat, leaving a raw, grotesque taste, but it  _can’t_ be as bad as –

Fuck, make him stop, I would do  _literally anything_ if Newts would stop and not have to do this –

It sounds like he’s choking, and he’s most definitely crying, and Alan’s making those soothing hushing sounds again that sound cruel in context. “That’s it, that’s probably enough,” he comforts Newts. “Look at you! So dedicated. You must be a  _wonderful_ mother.”

Mother.

It takes me a few more seconds before I risk looking back to see the entire lower half of Newts’ face covered in thick blood.

Should I think of Newts as a woman, then? Suddenly a lot things make sense. The fact that Newts doesn’t flirt with my girl avatar, the way she was holding herself…

On some level, I know this isn’t what I should be thinking about, but it’s safer thinking about this than what I just saw.

There’s a ping, and the notification comes up –  _‘Unlocking Doors: Three of four artifacts obtained.’_ – and I think I’m relieved because that means she isn’t going to be forced to drink any more.

Alan is taking the blanket back, putting it in the bassinet, and I go to support Newts. She doesn’t seem to need to lean on me, but I wrap my arm around her anyway. “Are you okay?”

It’s a stupid question, but she answers it anyway. “I feel sick.”

I nod; I feel sick and I didn’t even have to do that.

Alan is humming gently, bent over the crib and paying us no more mind. Impulsively, I streak a little of the blood off Newts’ face with my thumb, cringing. She doesn’t look back into the nursery as we walk back into the hallway towards the staircase.

“…You’re a mother?” I ask when the only sound is our descent. I want to get her mind off what happened, and I just feel like…I need to know.

There’s an almost glazed look in her eyes, still. She hesitates and shakes her head. “Not anymore.”


	11. Chapter 11

The Giver’s Square is the only place left for us to go, and I almost don’t care that means we’re going to be forced to face the blind boy again.

I’m just petrified that someone will have the same thought I did. If Gun thinks, like I do, that it could have been avoided… I deserve all the blame I get, but I’ve been pushed past my breaking point so many times today that I don’t know what’s holding me together.

Probably Newts.

And since leaving Dante’s Manor, she’s been utterly silent and queasy, a thin sheen of sweat on her heavy brow and the veins in her now-bare neck as visible as though they were drawn on with marker. I don’t disturb her or urge her to walk faster, even though I can tell Blazer’s recovered enough to want to charge to the end of the line.

One artifact left, and since telling them that I thought I’d met the last monster, he’s a little like he used to be when questing. Determined, prepared to cut down anything that gets in our path.

Silversun was concerned, initially, that with the ‘Darling Valentine’ quest finished, we’d be back into Roaming Mode, but the game mechanics seem to have changed. Other players are invisible to us, still, and a quick check of our information screen confirms it. The daily quest counts, and so long as it hasn’t been completed, we won’t be dealing with any human threats.

Coming back up to the Square, the first thing I notice is that the Quest Master has left his pedestal.

“What the fuck,” my eyes narrow, but if anyone else has noticed, they don’t seem to think it’s important. They’re moving on, Gunmetal drawing himself in to be as small as he can physically manage... which is still considerably large, and I wince and wish I’d picked someone else. Someone smaller.

No –

God, no.

I couldn’t wish this on anyone.  _God_ , what’s wrong with me…

It’s some kind of small mercy, that Freya seems to ignore us as we come close, but that doesn’t put Gun at any kind of ease. He keeps as far away from the bench and out of sight as he possibly can.

He flinches, when he notices me watching, and I hide my face from him in wordless apology.

The blind boy is moving in the pattern he set for himself, feeling over the book’s tiny braille bumps. None of us seem to want to be the first to say anything. I only spend a second inwardly begging anyone else to have the first word, realizing that if I spend too much time waiting, the duty will probably fall on Newts. “Hey… Uh. Excuse me…?”

The blind boy doesn’t lift his head. “Yes?”

“I-…” Fuck. Why didn’t I plan anything to say? “Bone…”

“What?” he draws his hand back, allowing the girl beside him to turn the page.

“I need a bone?” I rephrase weakly.

A ghost of a smirk flickers over the boy’s face. “I think  _he_ could give you one,” he raises one arm, pointing it in Gun’s direction.

He’s like a deer in headlights, and the hot surge of anger at least clears my head.

“You’re the one we need, right? What do I have to do, snap one of your fingers off? Break your leg? What part of you do I take for me to be done with this _fucking game?!_ ”

“You shouldn’t yell at children.”

“You’re not a child, you’re a monster,” I growl.

“You’re wrong,” he lifts his head, ghosting his fingers over the book. “I’m not the monster.”

For a second, I think he’s talking about me, and I can’t argue with him.

“But I am the person you need to talk to,” he continues. “I can give the spine to you, but when I do, something bad will happen.”

Spine? My eyes flicker to the girl. There’s no way he means hers…

“What do you mean by ‘something bad’?” Blazer demands.

“You’re going to need this first, to get back in,” the boy doesn’t answer, lifting the heavy pages until he can slip a plain-backed card from where it’s been stowed beneath the cover.

I take it automatically. Deliberating this shit is so old.

‘ _Plead the Fifth: Based on your secrets, discern and serve your sentence before the judge and court-appointed prosecution.’_

There is no court, in-game.

Based on my secrets? What secrets are they even talking about? What kind of bullshit quest –

“All he wants is proof that you’re worthy,” the boy begins to close the book. “I hope you’re ready.”

“Ready for what-…”

The girl reaches to turn the page, and finds nothing there.

‘ _Server error.’_

‘ _Glitch detected.’_

‘ _Redirecting.’_

‘ _Server error.’_

‘ _Redirecting.’_

‘ _Updates loading.’_

‘ _Quests loading.’_

 

‘ _Welcome back, Wingspan.’_

I lurch upwards, and a stinging, thudding pain rockets through the back of my head, sending little bursts all through my skull.

Opening my eyes a crack, I glower at the corner of my desk. I had to have fallen asleep on my floor, for that to have happened… Impractical, and why the  _hell_ did I decide that lying down here was a good –

Wait.

No.

This is a lie.

I sit up slowly, propping all my weight on my elbow. This isn’t right. I’m staring at my own makeshift mattress, on the floor by my desk. Clothing’s strewn on the floor at the foot of the couch-cum-bed, the blankets balled to one side…

And the hand I’m staring down at is my own. As in mine, Alexander Heron’s, not Wingspan’s slender fingers. But…

Everything is tinted vaguely green, like I’m looking through the monitor of my VR headset. One hand touches my face; I’m able to, which means it’s not physically on my head…but I’m sure the situation hasn’t changed. I’m still in the game. I blink, bringing up my inventory to find everything still there. Health potions, mana.

My head throbs, a little. I’m not sure if it’s because I hit it, or because I’m having trouble getting my thoughts in order. Either way, I start to stand up, and damn near hit myself again because I was expecting to be alone.

There’s a girl, slumped over at my computer. Short brown hair, nice figure, full lips parted slightly. She’s in a familiar bodysuit and armor, interlocking golden cogs forming a kind of chainmail, and she’s alive and in front of me.

I am staring at myself.

Her chest – Wingspan’s chest – is rising and falling a little more rapidly, breathing in tandem with me, and I try to slow it down. Even it back out, because of all the strange things I’ve seen, this barely makes the list.

Her breath slows, too. She’s as alive as I am.

There’s a deep intestinal murmur from my stomach, and I’m over the shock enough to look for food. The lasagna is gone, and when I make my way to the kitchen to inspect the fridge, I find it equally vacant as my desk.

Drinks are gone, too. I turn around, twisting the taps of my sink, but nothing comes out.

So much for that. The empty burn in my stomach makes my entire body ache, but I try to ignore it. I’ve got to piece together what just happened.

I remember something about secrets. Confessing secrets?

My gaze flickers to Wingspan. It’s not like she’ll condemn me; she is me.

So she won’t judge me any more harshly than I can judge myself, and if I pursue that line of thought I’ll get philosophical. Secrets…

The truly terrible things aren’t something I’ve hidden. I settle for the things I haven’t told anyone, before.

“Uh,” I start, and my own voice is alien; I’m almost _used_ to sounding like a girl, now. “Uh, in third grade, I stole a bunch of Lego pieces from a set, from a toy store?”

Silence. Maybe that wasn’t severe enough.

“…I sometimes look up interracial BDSM porn, even though it makes me feel like I’m being racist?”

Still silence.

“In junior high I told everyone my parents were getting divorced, so they’d feel bad for me,” I continue awkwardly. “I got Joanna Sypes to give me a pity kiss, and then told her boyfriend about it. And then I, uh, kissed him too…”

Nothing. Yeah, I don’t think this is accomplishing fuck-all.

Experimentally, I try to bring up my quest list, re-reading the description and feeling more than a little idiotic. I still can’t quite put together what happened, like my memory right before waking up on the floor of my apartment is fragmented. I recall the blind boy, and something about that book, and him handing me a quest…

The second idea to cross my mind is to bring up my party member list, and with the addition of Silversun, they’re all online.

I cross my fingers and try sending a message to Newts, but don’t have the faintest idea how to go about it without typing. Compounding my stupidity, I tentatively say to the empty room, “Newts? Are you able to get this?”

I wait. I didn’t honestly expect that to work-

_Newts:_ “Wings…?”

Holy shit.

The message springs up, and it’s the most welcoming thing I’ve ever seen.

“Where are you, right now?”

_Newts:_ “I’m just…here. At home. There’s no one else around, Wings, it’s bizarre.”

“No one?” I repeat. “Roommates, family?”

_Newts:_ “Husband.”

Oh.

When she gives me her address, I’m in a bit of a haze. She only lives a few blocks from me, and despite my reluctance to leave Wingspan behind, I step out into the vacant hallway and lock the door behind me, prepared to run the entire way. I  _ping_ Hellblazer, as I go, and then just…let myself think.

It’s stupid, to be a little let down that Newts is married. I didn’t even have any kind of sincere interest until…all of this started. There was the joking flirting that didn’t mean anything, but –

What the fuck kind of priorities do I even have? Why am I even remotely bothered by this when our lives are at stake?

My keys smack against my leg as I run, loose in the pocket of my hoodie. They’re going to leave a bruise; I’m actually sturdier, as Wingspan. My sides are already aching, too.

It’s a good thing I’m not thinking about whether or not Newts might find me even remotely attractive, because if I were, the fact that I’m this out of shape would kick what self-esteem I have in the ass, crippling my ability to run even further.

Blazer hasn’t responded to my message, by the time I’ve slowed down to an exhausted jog and started counting house numbers. The entire way here, I haven’t seen a single person, and while it’s unnerving, it also makes perfect sense to me. I’m still in quest mode.

The address matches up with a box-shaped suburban condo; not terribly high-quality housing. There’s an older model Honda in a driveway, but the houses are all positioned so close together that I can’t tell if it belongs to Newts or not. Approaching the front door, I rap my knuckles against the surface while scanning for the doorbell, spotting it seconds later.

The message box springs up into my field of view.

_Newts:_ “That’s you knocking?”

I rest my forehead against the door, just for a moment. “Yeah. Open up?”

_Newts:_ “Just one second.”

I move back before it opens. The woman in the doorway is harried, and only a tiny bit older than I thought. I’d guessed she was in her twenties, close to my age or older, but she’s most definitely in her thirties, too mature and put-together even when she’s fatigued. Deep brown eyes have bags under them, but her dark complexion is otherwise entirely smooth. Her black curls are piled on top of her head, and she’s dressed in loose-fitting clothing.

She’s actually kind of gorgeous, and in the back of my mind, I find it comforting to know that she’s out of my league anyway.

“…Wings,” she exhales, and the message notification springs up simultaneously. I minimize it, sending another _ping_ to Blazer while I’m at it.

And then she’s hugging me, arms wrapped around me so tight that my ribs are going a little numb.

“So…” I struggle to find something to say, slowly crossing my arms over her back. “Are you alright?”

“As alright as I can be,” she looks away when she releases me. “I still feel it, in my system. It’s changed _something_ in me, and even though I can feel it… I don’t know how. Can you still feel them?”

I’m oblivious, for a moment, but I flex my fingers when I catch on, paying close attention to the way the movement feels. There’s still something tight, around the bone, inside.

“Still there,” I confirm darkly.

Newts sighs. “This is all so messed up…”

“Is your avatar here, too?” I ask, and she nods.

“He’s in front of my laptop,” she sighs. “I thought if I could wake him, I might wake up, myself. Back in the game world, assuming we’re not still in it, right now.”

“We’ve got to be,” ready to give up, I send another _ping_ Blazer’s way, but this time I get an immediate response.

_Hellblazer:_ “Fuck off.”

…At least he isn’t ignoring me, anymore.

“One second, I just got through to Blazer,” I tell Newts before opening the window properly to message him back. “Where are you? I’ve met up with Newts, we’ll go grab you, then get to the others.”

_Hellblazer:_ “DON’T.”

Wow.

That was…vehement.

Newts is looking at me with vague concern. “Look,” I feel foolish, speaking to Blazer when he’s not even in the room and Newts is just  _watching_ . “For safety’s sake, we have to find each other. We’re not out of the game yet. Whatever our differences, this is the only chance we’ve got to survive and beat this thing, and we are  _so fucking close_ to beating this.”

For a long moment, Blazer isn’t responding. Newts places one hand on my arm, and I shrug one shoulder at her, frustration building.

_Hellblazer:_ “…Shit. Shit, fine.”

_Hellblazer:_ “I’m at the call center downtown. Just.”

_Hellblazer:_ “Just don’t say a fucking word, when you see me.”

That’s vaguely ominous, but I nod. “Alright. We’ll be there in a second.”

He doesn’t reply, and I minimize the window. “Blazer’s downtown, giant glass building – I can direct you,” I almost trip over my words. “You have a car?”

“I’ll grab my keys,” she nods, going to slide on a pair of shoes and taking a keychain off a wooden bar with several tiny pegs. Her purse, I think she grabs mostly out of habit.

“Blazer seemed kind of freaked about the prospect of us actually seeing him,” I warn her while she gets ready. “He doesn’t want us to say anything. Not sure what about, specifically.”

“Noted,” Newts makes for the door and I get out of the way, following her to the blue Honda.

She backs up out of the driveway, checking her rearview mirrors more than once. I don’t think to do up my seatbelt until she pointedly taps her own, sheepishly prompting me to fix that. Even though I don’t think anyone will be on the road, right now…

The engine seems louder than it really is, with neither of us talking, but she fills the silence before I do. “I’m Penelope Newton.”

I didn’t even introduce myself. My thoughts are so fucking scattered. “Alex Heron,” I return the late introduction. “I’d shake your hand, but I’d rather you didn’t take yours off the wheel. And we kind of had a hug, earlier, which feels way more intimate, so I think we kind of bypassed the need for that.”

The smile that flickers over her face only lasts for a second, and it’s lacking any real spark of humor. I’m not offended. If anything, I’m amazed that she smiled at all.

The rest of the car ride passes in relative silence – occasionally, I point out a left turn or urge her to run the red light, which she does continuously after the first one we run into. The call center is our town’s only massive building, and I know it well; I’d applied to work there after the first couple of my college applications fell through, and I thought an office job would have more opportunities to get promoted, and make excuses for me not to try again and get rejected by more schools.

Needless to say, I wasn’t hired.

Penelope pulls over in front of the building, letting me out of the passenger side. I message Blazer again when I reach the glass doors, speaking aloud, “What floor are you on?”

_Hellblazer:_ “Don’t bother. I’m coming down to meet you.”

Penelope’s parked the car right where she stopped, coming up behind me. “We’re waiting?”

“He’s coming to us,” I affirm, staring into the front lobby. There’s a polished security desk by the floor directory and some plants, but it’s mostly empty space, a straight shot through to the many elevators. The number above one of them is flashing, steadily counting down from the ninth floor.

When the display reads a glowing red ‘G’, the doors slide open and holy shit if that’s Hellblazer.

It has to be Hellblazer.

Deeply tanned skin, chestnut hair down to her waist, gorgeous eyes. She could be a model, easily. Hell, she probably  _is_ one. She’s long-legged, curvy, and I don’t know how in the hell those breasts could possibly be real. There’s only one mar to her perfect appearance, and that’s the makeshift patch she’s put over her left eye and the thin, spider-like scars spreading down her cheek and over her straight nose.

The glass doors open, and the woman’s fist cracks hard across my jaw.

Even with half the muscle, she packs enough of a punch that I go down, stumbling straight back into a very subdued Penelope.

“…That might have been justified,” I wince, holding my chin and apologetically checking over Newts, who straightens her clothing.

“You’re damn right it was,” Blazer snaps. “Don’t look at me.”

Holy fuck, I’ve heard porn stars that sound like Blazer. I’ve  _seen_ porn stars like Blazer.

No matter how self-conscious Penelope is feeling, though, it looks like hot girl-version of Blazer feels it tenfold. Arms are crossing (accidentally framing her chest, but I don’t think it’s wise to point that out), her chin juts out as she turns her face away… Weirdly, it’s the left side she chooses to expose to us. Maybe because she can’t see us out of her covered eye, or maybe –

Oh. It clicks.

“… Sorry. I don’t know much about-… What gender do I call you?”

_Fuck_ , I probably seem like an insensitive ass.

I  _am_ an insensitive ass.

“‘He’,” Blazer mutters. “Thanks.”

I try to relax, and nod. That was surprisingly less painful that I was expecting.

“Where to, now?” I have a guess where Blazer might be interested in heading, first, but I’ve made enough horrible decisions and presumptions for one day.

“I have Flower’s address,” he reluctantly admits, “but I don’t want her seeing me like this.”

“Do you want to change?” I suggest; it’s probably a stupid question, but the tight jeans and the dip of the collar to his blouse… That’s about the only change he can make, before we get there . “There are stores nearby… I don’t think this is even the real world, so a bit of shoplifting isn’t…I don’t know. Too immoral.”

Blazer’s looking at me again, that look he gets when surveying NPCs and determining whether or not they’re a threat. Shit, did I fuck up? Or maybe it’s the fact that I just accidentally claimed to have  _any_ sense of morality, after…

“I’ll change, yeah. I only dress like this for work,” he’s marching over to the car and opening the door to the passenger side. I decide it’s probably not a good idea to fight for the right to ride shotgun, and get in the back.

Penelope’s introducing herself while she does up her seatbelt, and after I echo it, he divulges, “Mackenzie St. Clair.”

We don’t spend long at the nearest outlet store, only long enough for Mack to bolt out of the car and grab the loosest clothing that fits him. When he comes back outside, tying his hair up and stuffing as much of it under a baseball hat bearing some logo I only kind of recognize, the car engine’s still running. I don’t miss the way he adjusts the hair falling forward, as well, positioning it to conceal the left side of his face.

I send a  _ping_ to our remaining three, despite my hesitation to contact Gunmetal. The only one to answer promptly is Silversun, and I mumble the entire exchange in the car.

“Lizzie Carlsen,” I speak aloud when I have the necessary information to pass along, “lives on the other side of town. Unless Baby and Gun live nearby, Silver could be our next stop.”

“Gun lives with Flower,” Mack says it like it should be obvious, and it kind of is.

“Siblings?” Penelope clarifies, and he nods, slumping down in the front seat. “I thought that might be the case.”

“Do they know we’re coming?”

“I messaged Flower a while ago to tell her, but she didn’t respond,” Mack sounds ill at ease with that, just a tiny trace of the growl I know in his sultry voice. “This one’s it, I think…”

It’s a three-story house, but it’s kind of unkempt. The lawn’s overgrown and the front steps are in disrepair. It’s no better or worse than anyone else’s home on this street, though. Penelope parks the car by their driveway, the garage doors closed. All the blinds are shut, too.

I lead the charge up the walkway, knocking on the door and immediately wishing I hadn’t. Mack’s trying to check though the windows, looking through the slats of the blinds.

“The son of a bitch is in there, just not answering,” he confirms testily.

“Is it a guy?”

Mack nods, and I start pounding harder on the door. “Gun!” I shout, “C’mon, open the door…”

He shouldn’t have to face me, but I really want to face him. I didn’t know until this moment that I needed to see his face, apologize for everything, ask if he’s okay, if I can make it right somehow –

The door opens abruptly, and I catch myself before I knock again.

And there’s that sharp jolting ache up my jaw again. God damn it.

I take the hit without even trying to defend myself – no one deserves to hit me more than Gun does – and privately bask in relief that he doesn’t hit as hard as Mack does. Gun’s entirely opposite to his avatar; slender arms tinier around the bicep than Penelope’s, a good few inches shorter than I am and with a delicate, expressionless face. Rounder jaw, light hair.

“Fuck off, Blazer,” he mutters at me, and starts to close the door.

“Wait-!” I wedge part of my torso past the threshold, stopping him from closing it. “I’m not Blazer.”

There’s a quick semblance of confusion flickering over his face, and it’s actually nice to witness. “What?”

“Wings, not Blazer.”

“…Oh.” He draws back and tries to slam the door, instead, and I think I might have heard my collarbone crack over my howl of pain.

Ow. Ow, motherfucking  _ow_ …

“ _Alex!_ ” Penelope’s got me. The door’s shut firmly, an impenetrable barricade between us and him. Totally my fault. Why did I think for a minute that telling him who I was would _better_ the situation?

…We’re pretty well fucked if we don’t get in there, but at least Gun got to take some of his anger out on me…

“Are you okay?” Penelope asks, concerned, but Mackenzie doesn’t seem particularly worried.

“Shit. He would’ve _punched_ me?” Mack seethes. “That little twink prick.”

“Thanks for the sympathy,” I can’t properly pull off ‘deadpan’ when I’m hissing in pain, testing my collarbone. It’s not actually broken, but it does hurt like a bitch.

“Your own fault for being a fucking idiot. What were you doing, blocking up the doorway of a guy who’s got every right to _hate_ you?”

Penelope is gently rapping on the door, now, persistent right up until the moment Gun opens the door just a crack. They speak in low tones that I don’t listen to closely enough, since I’m uncomfortably letting Mack inspect my jaw.

“Getting a pretty good bruise going,” he mutters. “You’re like a goddamn peach.”

The door swings wider open, catching our attention while Penelope strolls inside, one hand lightly against the doorjamb until we’re inside. For my bruise’s sake, I’m grateful.

The interior of the house is much like the one I grew up in. Nothing fancy to indicate they’re particularly well-off, but lived in. The living room’s to my right, and has plenty of family photos around, hanging diagonally with the more recent pictures higher up.

What little I know about heredities concludes that their parents’ genetics are pretty well fucked. The portly woman has bright red hair and freckles, deep lines of age through her forehead, and their father is darker skinned and broad across the shoulders. How in the hell they could’ve produced two blond children is beyond me…

Unless, of course, they didn’t. The tiny fair-haired girl standing by her mother; she has to be maybe five or six years old, when she makes her debut appearance in the family photos.

“I know her,” Penelope murmurs, surprised, approaching the pictures. I start to follow, just to hear her say, “Adelaide White. I taught her…two years ago, I think it’s been that long…”

“You teach?”

“Middle school,” she nods absently. “She was so quiet. I used to let her spend recess in class, some days, because I could tell she’d been crying…”

She looks troubled, or maybe just lost in thought. I don’t press at her for more information, turning back towards Gun instead. He hasn’t really strayed from the shut door, hand on the doorknob, like he’s contemplating bolting outside.

“So, you and Flower really are siblings?”

“Genius,” Gun gives me a look that’s partly irritation before his head bows and he avoids meeting my gaze.

He was okay, when he thought I was Hellblazer. Now he just can’t seem to look at me for more than an instant with flinching, like he thinks I’ll lash out or touch him or –

I’m feeling sick again, and I quash it as harshly as I can. I still have to…

“Look,” I inhale deeply, more than nervous, and I feel stupid for even trying this. “About what I did-… I’m sorry, I never wanted for-…”

“I don’t care.”

I stop talking.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry,” he lets go of the door. “Everyone’s _sorry_.”

There’s a weird weight to the way he said that. I know I’m missing something.

Mack’s looking for the staircase, I think, looking around down the hallway and cutting off the conversation. “Where’s Flower?”

Gun looks a little subdued, now, and if I hadn’t been the one to hurt him, I’d want to just…touch him, on the shoulder or head or hold him as tightly as the protective streak I didn’t know I had allows. Just to make that vulnerability lessen, because it doesn’t suit him.

“Upstairs, with her avatar,” he replies. “Addi doesn’t want to leave hers.”

“We’ll talk to her, maybe we can convince her,” I follow several steps behind Gun, as he shows us to the stairs. I feel like if I walk too close, I’ll freak him out.

“I doubt either of you can, but the hebephilic lesbian might,” he has some of his fight back, but it sparks Mack’s ire predictably.

“What the fuck did you just call me?” he growls.

“You called me a cocksucker,” he fires back.

“This is a _really_ bad time for this, guys,” I interject. Penelope has that _look_ , like she’s starting to get a headache, and even through her rich skintone I can see her veins.

Mack seethes, but I think his need to see Adelaide wins out over anger, and he continues up the stairs. The second floor is where we stop, two of the doors on this landing open while the third is very firmly shut. I think it’s probably their parents’ room or Gun’s, because while one is a bathroom, the other door is open just enough to see the pastel yellow wallpaper.

Gun just doesn’t strike me as the pastel yellow type.

He’s going to open the door further, and now that we’re here, Mack seems frozen. The girl inside the room is unquestionably Flower, but it’s obviously been a while since the last family photo. Her pale blonde hair is shorter in the back, but the bangs are long and hanging messily in her face. She’s entirely in black, a stark contrast to everything else around her.

She’s on the floor, laptop plugged in about a foot away, leaning against the legs of a redheaded girl with a bouquet in her lap. Two tones of purple flowers, white ones, and a bright golden blossom smack-dab in the middle.

I’m biting right through the inside of my cheek. I hope they’re flowers. I really fucking hope they’re flowers.

“Addi, come on,” Gun kneels down next to her, trying to carefully guide her up off the floor. “She’ll be fine…”

“Blazer’s here?” She’s so quiet that I almost don’t hear her, but I think Mack must have. He looks even tenser, like he’s preparing to haul ass out of here.

“I didn’t even know she’s that young,” he’s balking in an undertone. “I shouldn’t-…”

“Blazer’s right there, yeah,” Gun blocks off Mack’s escape plan by pointing him out directly, giving him a short glower. I don’t focus on that; I’m more intent on Adelaide’s reaction.

She doesn’t look dismayed, just momentarily perplexed. Sitting up very slowly, she rests one hand against Whiteflower’s bouquet (got to be flowers, she wouldn’t touch them if they weren’t…) and places the other against her side in a loose kind of self-hug. Or, it looks a little bit like she’s putting pressure against a cramp.

There’s no way out of the situation, now. Mack steps forward, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. I think we’re all expecting Gun to say something snarky, but he doesn’t.

He would have, before.

“Blazer?” Addi confirms, her confusion passing.

“Yeah.” Mack offers her a hand up, which she hesitantly takes, releasing the bouquet. “…What’s wrong with your side?”

She’s squeezing at it visibly, but shakes her head. “Nothing,” her breath catches loudly enough for me to hear. “I’m fine. Ken…?”

Gun – Ken – is getting up and pushing the door open a little wider, stealing a glance at me. “We should leave,” he mutters. “Want to check on my avatar, first.”

“Okay,” Adelaide hasn’t let go of Mack’s hand. I think they’re exchanging actual greetings, when my vision is obstructed by _ping_ from Silversun.

_Silversun:_ “I got through to Knifebaby, and I’m thinking that since my parents aren’t around and I  _technically_ have my learner’s permit, I can drive him to you.”

‘He’? I fucking _knew_ it.

_Silversun: “_ He isn’t all that far away from where I live, so, where should I meet you?”

“Hey,” I speak up to grab their attention. “Silver and Baby can meet us. So, city hall?”

I don’t know of an official ‘courthouse’ in town, so the only sensible place to conclude that we’re going to have to hold a trial is there.

There are nods of assent around me, so I open the conversation with Lizzie and mutter my reply, “Head to city hall, we’re pretty sure that’s where the quest location is.”

_Silversun:_ “Sure.”

_Silversun: “_ My GPS says we’re like, twenty minutes away.”

“No other drivers on the road, just worry about getting there,” I reply, and minimize the chat window. Ken’s footsteps are thundering down the staircase, coming back from where I presume his room is, upstairs. He’s adjusting the back of his shirt, fidgeting uncomfortably –

No shit, he’s uncomfortable.

I look away quickly and bite the inside of my cheek to keep from apologizing. He doesn’t want apologies, so I’ll spare him another ‘I’m sorry’. At the first taste of blood, the hair unlocks my jaw with an agonizing twinge. I immediately relent and stop breaking my skin.

“It’s going to be a little cramped with the five of us in my car,” Penelope warns before starting back for the staircase. Adelaide is looking at her avatar uncertainly, Mack whispering something in her ear to get her to tentatively cooperate and follow the rest of us.

“Forget that,” Ken disagrees. “I’ll drive Addi and me. And Blazer, I guess.”

“You have a license?” I know I sound surprised.

“I’m nineteen,” he’s vaguely irritated, and I get the impression that’s something he has to say pretty often. He doesn’t really look it.

“…Okay, Alex and I will go in my car. You know the way?”

“I do,” Mack speaks up. “I’ll navigate, let’s just fucking go.”

Penelope leads me out to her car while the other three go to the garage. I take the front seat again, and wonder when the hell our ‘don’t split up’ rule fell to pieces in a seemingly-permanent way.

It was shortly after I fucked things up for everyone.

Penelope’s putting the car in drive when I ask, “Am I a completely horrible person?”

She falters, giving me a look that’s partly incredulity, but mostly sympathy. “Everything you’ve done, I know you’ve done out of necessity. So no, you’re not a horrible person.”

Maybe it’s because I need to convince her that I’m as terrible as I feel, because there’s no other reason behind saying, “What about for being interested in you, even though you have a husband?”

This isn’t the time, but I don’t think there’s ever going to  _be_ a ‘time’.

Penelope’s keeping her eyes on the road. I can see every vein in her neck. “…It’s been a very long day, Alex.”

“And I wouldn’t have made it through a few hours without you,” I feel a bit defensive, and that’s stupid. “You’ve always been great, even before all this, and you’re gorgeous-…”

“You didn’t even know I was a woman until today,” her cheeks are coloring, but she’s remaining firm.

“Never been a problem, for me. You do remember that I’ve been flirting with your male avatar, right?”

She exhales; I think it’s almost a weak little laugh. “…My husband and I…”

I don’t know what I want to hear from her, but if it’s a refusal – like it should be – that’s a good way to start it, instead of telling me that I’m a loser and a monster.

“We haven’t been a couple in years,” she confesses with a slow, quiet sigh. “Not since-… Things just fell apart. It’s not…bad, but there’s nothing between us, anymore. But, you and I…”

I’m still watching her neck, and see her swallow. “You must be at least ten years younger, I didn’t even know you’re a man until recently, and this entire situation has put us through so much. I feel like I know you better than I’ve ever known anyone, after watching decisions you’ve made and the hell it’s put you through, but I’ve  _still_ only barely met you.”

This isn’t a ‘no’, or a ‘yes’. I don’t interrupt. I still don’t even know what I was angling for.

“So maybe I’m the bad person, for thinking that maybe, after all this… Maybe. If it turns out we’re not just scared and seeking comfort and there’s more to the two of us than getting by. But for now, we get through this game,” she concludes. I’m nodding.

“…Yeah,” it makes sense, to me, and a bit of the weight on my chest has lifted. Just get through the game.

I really don’t know what I’d do without her, but I know better than to tell her so, right now.

“Have you felt anything, since the blood?” I need to change the topic, and even though it’s a grim one, it’s still something I need to ask.

“Yes,” she nods stiffly, facing forward. “It’s…odd. Everything feels stronger.”

“Pain, or-…?”

“No, I mean – _I_ feel stronger, and not in a way I like. It feels wrong… Unnerving,” Penelope swallows again, and I watch the dark veins bulge just a little with the movement. “What does that hair do? It just…stops you from doing things?”

“Or makes me do things, I think,” I flex my fingers unconsciously and feel the makeshift wire tug. “I can fight it, but you can’t even imagine how painful it is. And they make me do…whatever it is, anyway.”

“When does it act up?”

“I’m not sure,” I sound, and feel, uncertain. “Seems to have its own fucked up agenda.”

“…We’ll have to keep an eye on that,” Penelope notes, making a right turn towards the city hall building.

The parking lot still has cars in it, but there’s a sloppily-parked Prius that stands out, given the teenagers leaning against the doors.

The teenage girl is probably about seventeen or eighteen. The purple dye is fading out of her hair, clothes a little too small to be the proper size; they’re hugging her curves too tightly and her shirt’s riding up her thick waist a little. She has a cute face, rounded chin, big eyes. I can tell immediately that Lizzie’s the kind of girl I would’ve dated in high school, a little bit awkward and self-conscious. We would’ve clicked, bonded over the fact that neither of us felt comfortable in anything we did.

Then again, maybe I’m being presumptuous.

And Knifebaby – I could have described him with my eyes shut, just because nothing was a surprise. A gawky boy in his early teens with an overbite and buzzed red hair. What I definitely didn’t like about him was the fact that he exuded confidence, anyway, and that just didn’t seem fair.

Penelope was parking next to them, and Baby – oh god, it was going to be hard not to call him ‘Baby’, just to piss him off – was trying to peer in, but the arrival of the second car was a distraction from us. I released myself from the confines of my seatbelt, getting out of the car.

“You’re wimpier than I thought you’d be,” Knifebaby declares when I step out, giving me a critical once-over with a distinct expression of pleasure, but he skips over looking at me when Mack and Adelaide are in view. His jaw drops just a little. “But you’re _way_ hotter than I thought you’d be…”

“ _Don’t_ look at me.”

“What, it was a compliment,” Knifebaby sounds defensive, almost angry, and I roll my eyes.

“I will take one of your daggers and shove it down your fucking throat,” Mack growls.

His brow furrows. “…Wings?”

“ _No_.”

The part of me that isn’t offended on Mack’s behalf is offended on my own. What, like I would’ve reacted any better?

“That’s Blazer, I’m Wings,” I correct him a little bit coolly, and feel my gut twist. With everyone here, and Ken looking at me – I _think_ he is, I’m not willing to check – admitting who I am feels like a secret I can’t actually hide. Every time it’s brought to light, the shame crawls up my throat and tries to strangle me with it.

“I’m Newts – real name, Penelope,” she’s handling the remainder of the introductions. “Adelaide and Ken, there; Whiteflower and Gunmetal, respectively… You’re Silversun? Liz, I think Alex said?”

“Lizzie,” she nods vigorously. “And this is Danny…”

“Daniel, and you know who I am,” he says dismissively. “Are we done with the introductions, or is that an important part of this quest?”

I pretty much expected Dan to be a colossal dick, so it’s nice that he isn’t defying expectations.

Mack leads the way to the front doors, giving them a harder shove than I think is actually necessary to get inside. It nearly closes on us, but Adelaide keeps it open while the rest of us file inside and take an uncertain look around.

The lighting is dim. Not flickering, or shorting out; it’s just lower than fluorescents should be. It looks like an average office, two elevators to one side before a long carpeted stretch of hallway. There’s a directory nearby, but I don’t think we’re going to need it.

That  _fucking circus music_ is coming from behind a closed door, down the corridor.

My eyes narrow, gait picking up to a run and stopping in front of the door. The burnished plaque on it has been defaced; ‘Courthouse A’ has been scrawled over in thick, familiar black lettering to instead read, ‘Alexander’.

Penelope’s hand lands on my shoulder, and mine goes to the doorknob.


	12. Chapter 12

The Quest Master sits behind the bench like he’s the court jester impersonating a king. He raps the ivory tip of his cane against the bench three times like a gavel, gesturing for us to step inside. The music isn’t as loud as I thought it was; it’s a taunting background drone, adding a dash of irritating flavor to the Quest Master’s gratingly condescending voice.

“Good to see you all made it,” he greets with a smile. “Close the door behind you, darling, we have a trial to get underway.”

I want to ask what he’s doing here, but I don’t know why I would have expected anyone else. The others are filtering in behind me, remaining standing even as he sweeps the cane in front of him, gesticulating for us all to have a seat.

“So what the fuck exactly is this?” Mack, defiant as ever, isn’t budging from where he stands, even as Dan goes to take a seat at the front. He isn’t alone; Ken doesn’t lift his head, possibly afraid of testing for the consequences. Even though she looks torn between who she should stay by, Adelaide slowly sinks into the nearest seat, hands outstretched to keep her hold on Mackenzie’s.

Lizzie’s eyes keep darting to me, like she’s waiting for some kind of signal from ‘the leader’, but I focus on Penelope. After a silent exchange that not even I follow, she goes to take a seat, facing the bench with her expression serenely set.

“Bear your secrets before the judge and prosecution, darlings,” he’s doing that thing, like it should be obvious to everyone what this bullshit means. “Under questioning, my prosecutor will determine what the accused is guilty of, and the judge,” he flourishes one hand, “will tell him what sentence he’ll be carrying out.”

I do a quick scan of the room. I’m honestly expecting the blind boy to appear, serve as the Master’s ‘prosecutor’…but there’s no one else in here, and that makes me feel worse.

“So who’s the prosecution?” Mack sounds like he’s making a threat.

“I think we already know, don’t we?” the cane lowers, steadying and pointing my way. “That’d be our little dove, here. The prosecution may approach the bench.”

I feel like I should have expected that, too.

“Why me?” My fists clench, and at the same time, Dan’s bolted upright, standing tall and tense.

“Why doesn’t _he_ get sentenced?” he demands.

It’s a fair question. Out of all of us, I deserve it the most.

“I think you all know why,” the Quest Master breezes. “ _You_ do, don’t you, ‘little girl’?”

I seethe. “…Because I don’t have any secrets. Not that I can keep. Everything I could keep secret – or that I’d want to – you’ve all seen. Or suffered through.  I’m the prosecution because I’m boring and worthless. I work a terrible job. I have too much debt. I can’t make it into college. There’s nothing for me to confess. Nothing of consequence to me.”

Penelope’s turned a little, watching me through partially lowered eyes, and the Quest Master applauds briefly, cane gently placed down across the bench.

“Stellar answer,” he whistles. “But, no.”

From his front pocket, he whips out a blood-spotted handkerchief.

_Shit_ .

“I damn near own you, darling,” he sneers, dangling the cloth from his fingertips. “Let’s get a move on, now, we’re wasting precious daylight! You kids don’t get nearly enough sun, these days, cooped up indoors with your video games.”

There’s a thunderous sound behind me of the door being bolted shut, and he crooks one finger at me. Abruptly, the strings  _pull_ , and I hasten forward before the pain breaks through my ribcage. It honestly feels like it could.

“Now, who are you calling to the stand first?” the Quest Master carefully folds the handkerchief into a precise little square and stuffs it back into his pocket. “Kenneth White? Mackenzie St. Clair? Daniel Rivers? Penelope Newton? Elizabeth Carlsen? Or Adelaide White?”

I want to flip him off and tell him I’m not making any more sadistic choices, but there’s a hollow ache in my chest that makes me second-guess the wisdom of doing so.

“…Anyone want to volunteer?”

They’re all looking at me like I’m their executioner… except Penelope, who’s remaining calm, and Ken, who won’t look at me at all.

“I’ll go first.”

Mack lets go of Addi’s hand – her fingers curl, still reaching out like she’s trying to pull him back. He marches past the gate, letting it swing shut behind him, and after a beat of deliberation takes the seat at the stand. He slumps into it, meeting my gaze challengingly with one good eye. “Let’s fucking do this.”

Adelaide’s moving up to sit at the front, watching me with enormous gray eyes, and I try really hard to turn back to the front and focus.

Everything I know about trials comes from shitty crime dramas on television. I have no idea what I’m doing.

“So…” I waver. “Can you please, uh…reveal your secret to the court?”

Stellar interrogation skills.

His expression darkens a little. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“I think you have to admit it out loud,” I’m trying to apologize without outright expressing it, the Quest Master’s watch strengthening my self-consciousness.

Mack’s glaring at me, but he grits out, “I lied. I’m not a-…” he stops, taking a breath. “I’m… _biologically_ …assigned female.  _Is that enough?_ ”

I look to the Quest Master, wordlessly demanding the same answer.

“What sentence are you going to accuse him of, based on that?” I think he arches one eyebrow, but his face is still strangely shadowed, hat tipped forward over his face. “That secret is on the surface, sugarplum, and if you don’t want to rush into an accusation and have our Hellblazer suffer the consequences, I’d dig a little deeper.”

I’m starting to realize why Mackenzie growls as much as he does; I think I picked up on the habit. “I’m sorry, Mack, you’ve got to say more,” I say it in an undertone, like that’ll somehow make it easier to divulge something I can base a sentence on.

He’s freezing up. “I-… I don’t know what else to say.”

“Just…tell us about your anxiety?”

“My _anxiety?_ ” he sounds like he’s liable to snap on me. “The fuck do you mean, my ‘anxiety’?”

“I don’t know-…” I cannot fucking panic. The Quest Master is watching me, drumming his fingers against the bench. “How it feels for everyone to see you the way you were born, and not how you are?”

“It _sucks_ , how do you think it feels?”

I get something like a flash of wicked inspiration. “Then…uh, do you mind if I ask something personal?”

“ _Yes_.”

Stupid for me to ask. I’ve got to, anyway. “Why were you dressed so – you know. The cleavage, the make-up, the tight pants? You said you dress like that for work, but that wasn’t a uniform.”

I should have backed up, first, because that incites Mack to reach forward and grab me by the collar, nearly choking me.

From behind me, I hear a near-inaudible gasp. Addi’s got this look like she wants to help, but doesn’t know how.

The Quest Master lightly raps his cane against the bench again. “Can’t have that. We need order in the court,” he clicks his tongue, and before I can tell for sure what he did, Mack’s practically pinned right back against the seat, leaving me with a hand at my throat and a thought that I should pursue a new line of questioning.

The thing between Mack and Adelaide doesn’t seem like it’s much of a secret, but…

“Look, we can talk about this, or we can talk about your thing with Addi,” I decide an ultimatum is the only safe way to go.

“Go fuck yourself,” Mackenzie snaps. “Leave Addi out of anything to do with my trial. My issues are _mine_ , not hers, and I will take this bandage off and _murder you_ if you drag her into this.”

I almost look at the Quest Master, but he doesn’t bang his pseudo-gavel or speak up in my defense. It’s kind of a fair enough threat, anyway.

“So, then…tell me why you do it. Are you hiding?” I guess.

He’s white-knuckled, gripping the witness’s stand. “That’s not it. Not exactly. It’s-…” he grinds his teeth together, and I think that whatever he’s about to admit is actually painful for him.

“I’m a pretty girl.”

There’s a heavy sort of bitterness in his voice, his posture.  “You want to know how it feels?” he glares. “Everyone telling you how you’re a pretty girl, all the time, and that if I don’t play it up, it’s a waste? All the bullshit about how I can get any  _guy_ I want, how I could be a  _model_ or  _actress_ or fucking  _phone sex operator_ – how the  _fuck_ would you think that feels? How the  _fuck_ would you expect it to be, when you can’t meet  _anyone_ in real life without them seeing you as the  _pretty girl_ you are? When the only person who  _might_ see you as a guy and  _like_ you is online, and you’ve never seen her face, and she’s  _ten years younger_ than you?!”

His voice hits a higher pitch with practically every word, drowning out the tinny music and echoing unnervingly for a moment until the incessant tune drowns him out, again.

I can’t help myself. I glance back at Adelaide. Both arms are wrapped around herself, squeezing her sides, watching Mackenzie with a subdued, sad expression.

She’s oblivious to everyone else looking at her, too.

“…Guess I’m not such a _pretty girl_ now, though,” there’s something vaguely satisfied under the animosity, and when Mack turns his face, it’s to display the left side. I feel like I should say something, but not a damn thing comes to mind.

_Bang_ .

I jump; the Quest Master’s tapped the cane against the bench, again.

“Try to keep the pauses to the minimum,” he instructs. “Is the prosecution ready to accuse?”

What?  _No_ .

I have no fucking idea what to accuse Mack of, and whatever I say will undoubtedly fuck him up. Unless I can put a positive spin on whatever I say…

“I’m accusing Mackenzie St. Clair of…not being who he is to appease the societal conventions of others,” I start off slow. “He’s guilty of emotional neglect?”

It’s the most selfless-sounding way I can think to spin it, and to my surprise, the Quest Master doesn’t demand I change my answer. “How does the defendant plead?”

“…What?” Mack is staring at me. “I don’t fucking understand-…”

“That’s a ridiculous formality, isn’t it, love?” the Master chortles. “I inherently trust the judgment of my court-appointed prosecutor, so I’ll go ahead and find you guilty as charged.”

“You’re _convicting_ me of-…”

“The accused has been found guilty of neglecting his emotions, and so the court will liberate them from you,” the Quest Master sharply taps his cane once against the bench, and the sound reverberates more than it should.

I watch something drain out of his expression, leaving the muscles slack and motionless. He looks numbed.

“Mackenzie…?” Addi nearly whispers.

Something’s constricting my throat tighter than when he was strangling me. “ I move that his sentence be rescinded and he instead place in my protection, as an agent of the court,” I barely know what I’m saying. I think I saw a television lawyer do this...

“Motion denied, or overruled – whatever it is your quaint judges say,” the Quest Master waves a dismissive hand. “You’d best call your next defendant. Get back to the audience area, honey, you’re holding up the process.”

Mackenzie is getting up from the stand, making his way back unquestioningly, like he has no will of his own. He shouldn’t be. He should be fighting, arguing, proud and angry and defensive and  _Blazer_ . He should be Hellblazer, and he’s so fucking far from the man I know that I’m starting to panic.

“What did you _do_ ,” I round on the bench, shoulders squared.

“What did _you_ do,” he counters with different inflection. “If you don’t like the penalty, don’t make the call.”

“You didn’t give me a choice!” I protest heatedly. Mackenzie is sitting down slowly, taking the first available seat with a milder expression than I think he should be capable of.

“Choices,” the word rolls off his tongue like he’s reveling in the taste of it. “Humans are so _obsessed_ with choices. Right choice, wrong choice. The ‘good’ choice, the ‘evil’ choice. If you wasted less time thinking about your _options_ , we could be done with this a lot sooner, hmm?”

He’s so goddamn patronizing, but it leaves me cold rather than boils my blood. “Is that what you’re doing this for?”

I just need some kind of definitive answer. I’ve never been particularly religious, but the way he’s speaking put an idea in my head, and it makes altogether too much sense for me not to panic and demand to  _know_ .

His spiel about choices, forcing me to take action I know is wrong –

“Are you from Hell?” My voice is steady and I don’t know how I’m keeping it that way. “The devil, or a demon, or – what _are_ you?”

For the first time I’ve ever seen, his too-wide smile fades, and he draws his lips into a thin, tight line.

“Hell?” he repeats deeply. “The ‘devil’?”

He leans over the bench, cane in both hands, and…I don’t move. I don’t think I can. He’s lowering his face towards me, breathing out dangerous spitted words, “I am beyond your pedestrian, crude, half-formed concept of  _hell_ . I am more than the greatest evil your low-brow little human minds could manifest, and to compare me to your weak theologies when I am attempting to open your doors to a higher classification of cruelty is an  _insult_ .”

The Quest Master pauses, and his lips are splitting, curling into that wide smile I know and fear. He leans back, drawing himself up with a rekindled casual air, and sweeps his hand towards my teammates, “Next defendant, turtledove.”

It takes me three tries to find my voice again. “…Any more volunteers?”

Penelope meets my stare, and I give a subtle shake of my head. Not her. Not yet. No one else seems exactly eager to step up to the stand.

So it’s up to me. They all have to come up, eventually.

…So I should get the hardest out of the way.

“I call Ken White to the stand,” I nearly trip over my words, turning to watch him get up. Adelaide’s flocked to Mackenzie’s side, but she watches every step her brother takes to the front of the courtroom like she’s the one approaching the gallows.

Kenneth places one hand on the gate, the other arm bent behind his back at a strange angle –

Because he’s pulling a gun.

From behind his back, and I don’t know how long he’s been concealing it, or whether he’ll fire it, but my hands reflexively twitch up, held in front of my chest and staring down the barrel, heart thundering.

“I don’t think so,” his voice is completely steady. He briefly looks to the Quest Master, who doesn’t show any indication that he’s going to stop this. He’s just leaning forward, amused and intrigued.

“Ken.” Slowly, I bend one knee, getting a lower position. Let him have the upper hand. Let him think whatever he wants. If he does shoot me, he’s got every right, but…

Fuck it, I can’t have come this far and die now, by a  _bullet_ .

“Shooting me isn’t going to solve anything,” I keep my voice as low and as calm as I can manage, despite the thin sheen of sweat on my forehead that I’m hyper-aware of. “Whether I’m here or not, the quest will go on. He’ll get a new prosecutor – is that right?”

The Quest Master just chuckles.

“I never thought it would solve things,” Ken’s meeting my eyes for the first time in ages. He has such a gentle face. The definition of a nice-looking boy who would never hurt anyone; the kind I’d hear about on the news. “I’m not an idiot. You wouldn’t be the first to think I am. But this isn’t about solving things, or about how I’ll be _judged_.”

There’s a click. I think he’s turned the safety off. “It’s about putting an end to this shit,” he exhales heavily, and it’s the first tremor I’ve heard to his voice.

I sneak a glance at the others to see that not a single one of them is moving. Penelope’s leaned forward, halfway out of her seat, but she’s still, with one hand clutching Lizzie’s arm to keep her from bolting forward. I’m infinitely relieved. If any one of them moves too sharply, catches Ken by surprise…

Only Mack and Dan are entirely impassive, but Adelaide –

“Reconsider,” I count to three between breaths, in my head. Try to be steady. Try to calm him down. “I didn’t want any of this to happen, and everything you hate me for, I swear, I hate myself for it too. But if you want to kill me…hold off, and let me keep being the bad guy. Let me get us out of here, we’re so close now, and then after you can do anything -”

“Don’t you _get it?_ ” his hand trembles, once, and then is rock-solid again. “This isn’t about hating you! I _don’t hate you!_ ”

My eyes sting.

The others have gotten low to the ground, except Adelaide. Adelaide is standing, watching, something in her expression broken.

“The shit you’ve done, what you put me through,” Ken sounds despairing. “…I get it.”

I don’t.

“We’re all worthless human beings,” he’s shaking his head marginally, forlornly. “All the cruel shit, all the pain – we don’t notice, or we don’t care. And when we do, it’s only because someone _we_ love is hurt, so we hurt too, or hurt back. We become someone else’s monster, but, it’s just to survive. It’s because if we didn’t, we’d just give up and die. That’s why I _have this_.”

He shakes the gun, a little, and my life damn near flashes before my eyes. I think he’s pulled the trigger. There’s no crack of the bullet, there’s no pain or darkness – I let out the breath I was holding.

“…We’re all worthless?” I stutter. “Even Addi?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

She doesn’t flinch.

“I’m sorry,” he says quieter, more subdued, “but after everything… Addi, I got this for you.”

“What…?” She’s squeezing her sides again.

“I can’t buy any more time, in high school,” he’s turned his head towards the tiny blonde girl. “After this year, you’d be alone, and they’d eat you alive. Even with me there, they were still…” his jaw tightens, for a moment. “I had to. I was _going_ to have to, they’re killing you. So I w-was going to kill them. Kill them first.”

Addi isn’t crying, but I think if she could, she would be.

“I at least could have put an end to the shit. I would’ve shot the place up, kill the worst ones, the ones who have it worst, _fuck_ , I don’t know,” he turns to me again, and I think he looks pitying through the madness. “This just became more pressing. Even if we live through this, I-… Fuck. It’s better, here, now. So you can’t hurt anyone else, anymore. So _you_ can’t hurt, anymore.”

I don’t know how to defend myself. Ken is simultaneously the most unbalanced person I’ve ever met and making the most sense out of anyone I’ve ever known.

“Ken?”

Adelaide’s voice is small, and very slowly, cautiously, she’s making her way through the gate. “This is what I’m supposed to do, right?” She takes the witness’s stand, looking up to the Quest Master for approval.

Ken’s stock-still, and I try not to move my head too much while I follow her movement.

“The prosecution didn’t call for a witness, but seeing as he’s a little under the gun, I’ll allow it,” the Quest Master hums.

Adelaide’s reddened palms clasp together, fidgeting. “Remember when Mom and Dad brought me home? Mom told me in the car that you were lonely, and that all you wanted was a little brother or a little sister, and that you’d look out for me. And it didn’t matter that none of us were blood-related, because we’re a family. Family protects each other.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he sounds just a little uncertain, like he isn’t positive whether or not he’s being honest.

“No,” Adelaide denies softly. “This isn’t protecting me, or anyone else. Not you, either… Ken, please? Put the gun down?”

Slowly, slightly, he’s lowered the gun. It’s aimed at my chest rather than my head, so I don’t feel nearly safe enough to speak just yet.

From the gate, there’s a soft sound from it being opened.

Ken twitches, rounding on the sound and firing.

My eardrums pop and ring, and Penelope collapses into the aisle.

I think Lizzie screamed. Or is screaming. I can’t tell; I can’t hear yet.

The color drains out of Kenneth’s face, and the gun clatters to the floor.

Just as well; I forget that he ever had it, or that I could be in danger. I’m scrambling up from my knees, bolting to the gate, only to be forcibly stopped by pain. The hairs feel like hooks inside me, seized by the Quest Master to prevent me from taking another step.

“The prosecution shall remain up here to keep this show rolling, pigeon,” he mocks sternly.

Penelope is sprawled backwards, the bullet having ripped through her sweatshirt. It had to have pierced her right through. There’s no blood coming from the hole at her ribs.

The pain only relents when I take a step back, the ability to form words stolen right out of my throat.

“I think this has gone on long enough.” The Quest Master doesn’t actually sound particularly impatient. “Go on, hummingbird, tell us what the accused is bearing that title for.”

It seems obvious, now. I don’t take my eyes away from Penelope, her head in Lizzie’s lap, Mackenzie just watching expressionlessly, Dan’s eyes wide but making not a single damned move to help. “Guilty of possession of a concealed firearm,” I can’t really hear myself talk. My eyes are still ringing.

“The judge rules that substantial evidence was presented before the court,” he raps his cane twice. “The defendant will no longer be able to conceal anything.”

I think I hear Adelaide saying Kenneth’s name, but I’m trying to see Penelope.

I still have healing potions. I can’t seem to focus well enough to open my inventory, the first time I try. Worse, when I manage it, I can’t withdraw anything. It’s become inaccessible to me, from here.

We need a hospital – a doctor – anyone.

“Permission to – we have to-…” I’m trying, and failing, not to panic. “ _Do something_ , please, we can’t keep playing your stupid game if she dies!”

“No need to be dramatic, dearest,” the Quest Master patronizes, furtive pleasure etched into his permanent smile, making the difference miniscule. “She appears to be in perfect health, from where I’m sitting.”

She’s sitting up.

Lizzie’s hands are quaking, drawing away just a little, and looking up at me, pale-faced. “She’s not bleeding,” she tells me shakily.

“I’m okay,” she’s confirming, wide eyes staring at the floor as her hand gingerly prods at the bullet hole. No blood, on her shirt or her hands. When I step forward, getting a better look at the floor…there’s none there, either.

Her veins are thicker and more visible than ever.

“Given that Adelaide White has so _considerately_ taken the stand, will she be your next defendant, bluebird?”

“I don’t want you to hurt my sister,” Ken mutters, staring at the gun on the floor.

“I know,” I try to tell him, but he hasn’t stopped talking.

“She’s the only thing I have left that makes me anything other than a pathetic, crazy kid, and if she gets hurt or dies that’s the last thing I have going for me. I’m so worthless at this point that I’d rather you rape me again, and it wouldn’t be as bad this time because at least I know you’re a guy and attractive, and I think if things were different or I’d known before, I might have-…”

The longer he talks, the more fearful he looks. He’s scared to look at me, he’s scared to keep moving his mouth, but he can’t seem to stop.

I clamp my hand over his mouth, and it’s sickeningly reminiscent – it’s too close to, it’s making me –

He said he’d rather…

And I didn’t do it myself, but I may as well have.

“Go sit,” I instruct him feebly, and he nods stiffly from behind my hand.

Addi isn’t steady, but she hasn’t moved. I take it as her confirmation that she’s willing to put herself in the line of fire, next, and turn towards the bench. I look over my shoulder quickly, though, before I start; Penelope is seated again, hand still pressed to her bloodless wound, and Kenneth is taking his seat. I can see his lips move, trying to keep the running monologue in his head quiet, but he can’t stop the flow of words from coming out.

Mack is just impassive. He should be freaking the fuck out. I have his girlfriend, up here.

“Get it over with,” she takes my attention back.

“Right.” In a weird way, I feel like this is an opportunity. There are things I never asked, before. “To start with, tell me why you spent so much time healing and buffing anyone who asked.”

Her face falls, a little, not expecting that. “What…?”

“I want to know,” I approach the bench and lean against the defendant’s stand, worn out to my very core. “You were so far behind the rest of us because you were busy casting spells for anyone who asked. Or didn’t, in some cases. You held us back, and I want to know what you were doing it for.”

“I’m sorry,” her jaw quivers reflexively. “I-I don’t know. I thought – someone should. So many people are mean to each other in-game, too, I just wanted to be nice -”

“But why was it _so important_ that you spend your time being nice instead of actually _playing_ the game?”

“I don’t know,” she stammers. “It made me feel better, people were nicer to me…”

“And people are usually mean to you?”

Like I was. Like Ken all but flat-out told us.

“…People are usually mean,” she confirms. “Not only to me. And in real life, I don’t do anything. So in-game… I just want to be nice.”

I feel like I’m on to something. If I can make this one a conviction that isn’t too horribly twisted, and one that doesn’t involve Mack… I’ll feel like I’ve done  _something_ right. “Why don’t you? Do anything, I mean?”

“I _can’t_ ,” she corrects herself. “I’m n-not tough, like you. I try, sometimes, but nothing works out…ever.”

“…Being nice and being a doormat aren’t mutually exclusive, Addi,” I mutter, and wince. I didn’t want to phrase it like that. “You let people walk all over you, and you’ve got to know there’s a difference. Hell, when we were all getting pissed off, you were pretty much asking me to hurt you – why?”

“I-I don’t know, I’m sorry, I don’t…”

God damn, I wish the whole ‘innocent’ thing was a fucking act. I don’t know how long the Quest Master is giving me before demanding a verdict, and I feel like I’m hitting a dead end. So much for being on to something.

She’s squeezing her sides again, and from this close, I can see the redness of her palms properly.

“…What did you do to yourself?”

“N-nothing-!”

“Adelaide cuts herself when she can’t cry, hurts herself when other people hurt her,” Kenneth’s voice is audible again, and Addi chokes on air.

“You promised, you’d never tell…”

“He can’t help himself,” I say numbly. “Prosecution is ready.”

Mackenzie is still watching us like he couldn’t care less what is happening, and I wish he’d stop. I want him to threaten me, hit me, tell me to second-guess whatever the fuck I’m about to say because if Addi gets hurt and it’s  _my fault_ …

“Defendant is accused of putting the wants of everyone else ahead of her own, even when she has to hurt herself to do it.”

Please, make her stop hurting herself.

That’s what Mack would want. If she has to be cornered by a conviction, let her be cornered in that way –

“The defendant is hereby sentenced to act on her every desire the instant it occurs to her,” the Quest Master declares, following it up with three loud _bangs_.

It’s another immediate change, and this time I actually watch something imperceptible die, in her.

Her stained fingertips dig into her bleeding sides, and she’s flitting out from behind the defendant’s stand, going for the gun.

“ _Shit!_ ”

She’s so much smaller than me that I think she’ll break, when she hits the floor under me. One arm locks around her as effectively as I can, knocking the gun out of her range. “Someone grab it!”

“I have it…!” Lizzie looks terrified, but she shoves the gate aside and picks up like she’s holding a bomb. Out of impulse, she hands it off to Newts, who aims it at the floor while she figures out how to switch the safety back on.

“I want it to be over,” Addi is struggling under me, making me twitch away, scrambling off of her. “I want it over now, _right_ now…”

There are tears streaming down her cheeks freely, now.

“Just stop, sweetie, come on-…” I reach to take her wrists, trying to prevent her from doing any more clawing at her cuts. “Ken, or Mack, would you _help?_ ”

Mackenzie, despite being able to emote as well as a corpse, is the first one on his feet, coming forward just because he was told to. What Addi wants seems to change, with him close enough; her struggles are directed towards him, and even though I know it won’t lead to anything good, I let her go.

She twines her arms up around Mack’s shoulders, on her toes just to reach, and hauls him down to kiss him aggressively. She’s still crying, and he isn’t responding, but she doesn’t tear away from him.

He’s just allowing it, and I’m close enough to them that I can see her lips tremble and the tears slip between their mouths. Mack can’t feel anything, and whatever Adelaide is thinking, her body’s an entirely separate entity, now. She’s acting on auto-pilot, pulling him back towards the seats of the courtroom, and I have to call for my next defendant.

I’m just so fucking tired.

“Can the prosecution call for a short recess?”

The Quest Master just laughs. “You know better than to ask that.”

He’s right. I don’t know why I even fucking tried.

“Now, if you could get your defendant to the stand, duckling,” he twirls the tip of his cane around, pointing it towards Lizzie.

She freezes; she’s still on this side of the gate, and I don’t want to risk arguing.

“C’mon,” the sigh I heave feels like it weighs me down even more. “Take a seat…”

For a second, I think she’s about to bolt, but she doesn’t. Adjusting the hem of her shirt, she bows her head a little and slinks past me. I think she murmurs, “Just do what you have to,” when she walks by, but it isn’t clear enough to make out.

I wish I’d called Penelope first, now, just so I could hate myself less when I see whatever consequences the Master comes up with. Lizzie’s giving me this look, like there’s still a glimmer of beaten-down hope in her eyes, and it’s just forcing me to admit my own incompetence to myself.

No matter what I do, I know the outcome will be terrible. At least there was a time I could’ve claimed ignorance.

“It’s okay,” Lizzie’s knuckles look ready to pop out of her skin, clutching the sleek wood of the stand hard. “I can take it.”

No, she can’t.

I can’t muster a single drop of resentment as I once again think to myself that she’s an idiot.


	13. Chapter 13

The fact that I don’t know Lizzie as well as my consistent teammates is abundantly clear to me, given that I’ve got no fucking idea where to start. Throughout all of this bullshit, I’ve been so busy trying to survive that I feel like I didn’t pay enough attention.

I could pull out some random accusation and hope for the best, but that can probably only end even worse for us both.

“Uh, earlier, you thanked me for doing all the tough shit.” It’s the only part that I can immediately think to build off of. “I want you to know, I appreciate that…”

She’s nodding. Just, steadily, like a nervous tic.

“Did you think it’d fall to you, if I didn’t?” I try, and start cursing myself out, in my head. Her former party. That’s what I _should_ have gone with…

“No – I mean, probably not?” She’s still nodding a little, through her denial, and I think she really is just doing it out of anxiousness. I think she’d be wringing her hands if she weren’t holding onto the stand like it’s keeping her afloat.

She doesn’t expand on it for several moments, until I give her a prompting movement, circling my hand with a touch of impatience. “Oh!” She reddens, and ducks her head a little. “I… Well, why would I? I’m not really part of your group, you just all kind of adopted me…”

“I never believed what they say about being adopted, that they ‘chose us’, just meant that they felt bad for us like we felt bad for her…” Ken’s incapacity for self-censoring has him speaking up loud enough to hear, over the music and the fractured, moaning breaths from Adelaide.

She’s dropping onto Mack’s lap in a broken rhythm, when I dare to sneak a glance, rutting against him like a dog in heat, and I look away as fast as my eyes can flicker. I feel like I’ve been  _burned_ by the sight, disturbed to my core.

“What… What I mean to say is,” Lizzie struggles to get the sentence out, “I think I expected you all to sacrifice me or throw to me the wolves, or whatever, and you didn’t and I was just really, really relieved.”

Of course I couldn’t have made that call. She’s a healer; if anything happened to one of our white mages, we’d be fucked several times over.

But I can’t tell her that. I’m disgusted with myself for being that cold, to begin with.

“Is that what your other team did?” At least she gave me something to segue off from. “What exactly happened with them?”

Her eyes shut, briefly, head still bowed, shoulders hunched up high. I haven’t even gotten too intense with my questioning, but knowing that something terrible is coming has her standing like she’s under siege.

“There were only three of us. Me, and two others girls from school – I didn’t even know them that well, and they were way better friends than they were with me. We got the quest, and we asked if we’d be trapped if someone else got the key first, and the Quest Master said yes. So…they’re the ones that formed the plan, and I didn’t know what else to do but go along with it…”

The Quest Master preens a little when he’s mentioned, like he’s particularly proud of himself over something.

“We went to the PvP zone and I stayed back to heal… They were both assassins, they probably thought they were being really clever.” Bitter words sour her frown. “We hid out in the Smoke Stacks but we got overwhelmed so fast, and I ran. I _knew_ what would happen but I just couldn’t stay there, and I thought if I could just hide out – b-but then more people came, I don’t know if they were looking for things like you guys, or if they just wanted to kill and eliminate the competition, but they were _everywhere_ and they were violent… I was scared. So I just kept hiding, with that NPC. Iris. Until you all came along.”

“…Were you ever going to leave the Stacks, if we hadn’t taken you with us?”

She chews at her lip. “Maybe? I don’t know? I don’t know – probably-… Probably not. There wouldn’t have been any hope for me, and at least it was  _safer_ there.”

“So you would have spent that entire time hiding out, just waiting to die,” I reiterate slowly. She looks like she wants to protest, but I don’t give her much of an opportunity to; I think I have something to latch onto, and even though I’m actively trying to forget that every consequence will be terrible, I’m so determined on getting through this that it almost seems like a good thing. “Alright, new question. You’ve been really pushing yourself to be helpful, right?”

Lizzie’s lifting her head a little bit, starting in on that repetitive nodding again. “Yes…”

“Is that because you want to get us through this fuck-fest, or because you thought that if you didn’t, you’d be the next one thrown under the bus?”

She’s silent.

“Come on, Lizzie, please?” I breathe slowly, exhausted.

“…Mostly the second one,” she mumbles. “The first, I don’t even really know if-…”

She trails off, the ‘if’ hanging awkwardly in the air until I egg her on to finish. “Know if  _what?_ ”

“I don’t think this game can be won.” She’s almost bitten right through her lip. “How do we even know there _is_ a way out? Why would he let us out at all? We’re trapped, and he doesn’t want us to win.”

“Objection,” the Quest Master himself interjects, banging an open palm against the bench. “All games are designed to be won or lost, buttercup, and I don’t want any room for doubt when I say that I’m honestly rooting for you. The seven of you little darlings have made it so much further than the majority of the others. They didn’t have the same _tenacity_.”

Lizzie looks like she’s been chastised for saying something in class to indicate she hasn’t been listening. Truthfully, I was the one barely lending an ear; instead, my mind’s traveled to Newts, again. Penelope.

Throughout this hell, she’s known how to follow, and I never once thought of her as being weak for it. She had it in her to step up and take point, but didn’t… but she unquestionably was doing what I needed her to do.

Not because she thought I’d spare her, or because it was better than giving up and waiting to die. Lizzie never had it in her to work towards a goal.

“Prosecution’s ready.” It comes out the same way ‘I’m sorry’ would.

“Let me hear it, songbird.”

Lizzie’s gripping the bench so hard that it’s sending tremors up through her arms.

“The defendant’s guilty of cowardice.”

Please, please just make her brave…

The cane’s hammered against wood four times. “I’ll go ahead and find you guilty, moonshine. The accused will henceforth face danger head-on.”

Lizzie’s grip goes slack, expression smoothing out briefly before her brows knit in vague confusion.

It’s less terrible than I think it could’ve been. I’m trying to reassure myself of that much. Making her fearless – so long as we keep an eye on her, keep her from doing anything too reckless…

“I must say, robin, you’re picking up the pace splendidly,” the Quest Master commends me, sending a spike of resentment through me.

“Don’t try to compliment me,” I glower. “If this is _dragging_ for you, you could get us back into the real game instead of dicking around in kangaroo court.”

“Praise where praise is due,” he taunts lightly.

Lizzie gets down from the stand, but doesn’t leave the area; she remains by the bench, by the pair of us, even when the Master gives her a vaguely unimpressed look. “Let’s clear the trial area, shall we? No one should be up here but our next defendant and my darling prosecution, here.”

She doesn’t move, but there’s tension all through her back, now. I approach her very carefully, gently trying to tug her back by the shoulders. “Guess you’re the most dangerous thing in the room,” I fire at the Quest Master, and even though I’m apprehensive there’s a small part of me that wants to laugh at him.

“Well, now,” he sighs theatrically. “That was a little thoughtless of me. Consequence contradicting rules! And any threat to try to get you to sit yourself down and watch the proceedings – that’d fall on deaf ears, just keep you flocking to me like I’m the honey to your fly.”

Lizzie’s breaths are shallow, panicked puffs. I squeeze her shoulder.

“So are you going to renege on that sentence, or what?” I say evenly.

“Of course not,” his smile is broad, as always. “She’ll be allowed to stay up here while _you_ get on with – what did you call this? A ‘kangaroo court’? So go ahead and pick your penultimate victim, darling.”

“Your victims, not mine,” I retort tersely, my last weak statement in self-defense.

“The judge can only make the call. Isn’t it a fact that the lawyers are the ones to sniff out the blood in the water?”

Slowly, I take my hand off of Lizzie, leaving her to shake and hyperventilate. The pang of guilt is a mild repercussion.

“Your defendant?” the Quest Master prompts. It’s a choice that doesn’t require the least bit of thought.

“Daniel Rivers.”

He makes an obnoxious sound, like he’s being horribly put-upon. Like we aren’t all in the same goddamn boat. He takes the stand with an expression unfit for a fourteen year old – way too cold – and crosses his arms.

Lizzie gravitates towards the two of us, no further from the Quest Master.

“So…any complexes or insecurities you want to admit to?” That could have used more tact and finesse, on a better day.

“No.”

…God _fucking_ damn it, Dan.

“The more you cooperate, the quicker and more painless this has to be.” My head aches horribly.

“I’m not fucked up in the head like the rest of them,” he snorts. “Pass.”

“Really,” I can’t pull off the deadpan tone as well as I once could. “So you were parading around as a scantily clad chick with breasts the size of cantaloupes and a Barbie doll waist, spouting misandry, because you have no issues to speak of.”

“Like you’re any better,” he sneers. “I like women, what’s wrong with that? I was playing the game as a _strong woman_. I don’t even know what else you said.”

“The man-hating bullshit,” exasperation tightens my throat. I can’t believe I have to spell that out.

“It’s called being a _feminist_. Guys can be feminists, and if you’re actually crying about it because it’s ‘man hating’-…”

“There’s not a _thing_ you just said that doesn’t annoy me,” I roll my eyes. This was a mistake. Bad topic to pursue. “Look, you told me your dad wasn’t exactly campaigning for ‘father of the year’, so is that it? You’ve got some kind of objectifying idolatry going on for girls because of some mommy issues?”

If I  _do_ get out of this and finagle my way into college, I’m avoiding any psychology courses – I can’t play fucked-up therapist ever again…

“My mom walked out on my dad because he treated her like crap,” Dan snaps back. “My _mom_ wasn’t the problem, it’s my _dad_. Men are all oppressive, sexist douchebags, and so is he. I don’t need _issues_ to hate douchebags.”

I want to call him out on every part of what he said, or point out that his sexualized idea of what a ‘strong woman’ is fits neatly into the definition of sexism, and then accuse him of being as much of a misogynist as a misandrist – or maybe just of being flat-out fucking ignorant.

But I don’t.

“So if you hate men so much, do you identify as a woman?”

“What?” There’s another trace of a sneer on his face. “No.”

“So you hate yourself?”

“Oh, _that’s_ mature,” he sounds mocking, apparently discounting it as a legitimate question.

“I’ll go ahead and assume you do, and I’m going to make another massive leap here and guess that’s why you gave in to the mirrors.”

His grimace faults. “Mirrors?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” I hold up my hand, flexing each finger slowly. “You have that bitch’s hair inside you, too. You flat-out told me.”

“And you don’t think calling her a ‘bitch’ is sexist?” Dan snipes.

“No, because she wasn’t a woman, she was an _evil monster bitch_ ,” I over-enunciate, eyes narrow again. Maybe he's not wrong on that point, but I don't want to think about Dan being right about _anything._ “The Hall of Mirrors showed us all versions of ourselves, that right? It showed me one, it showed Penelope. Whatever it showed you, you gave into it, let the hair inside you. Not like I did, because I _had_ to, you wanted it. _Why_.”

Dan’s expression twists into something dark and ugly.

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

The wire against my bone scrapes as I curl and uncurl a fist, calming myself down. “That’s kind of the point of this stupid fucking quest.”

“Except I _don’t_ have to play along with it if I don’t want to,” Dan bites back. “I don’t have to tell you why I let her have control, or what I saw, or _anything_. Her hair will make me, if I have to, and they aren’t doing anything to me.”

… _What?_

“They’ve been doing it to you too?” I almost gape. “This whole time?”

“But I wanted to cooperate anyway,” Dan continues. “Women are smarter, and go through more, so they’re more experienced. And she’s _part of the game_. She probably knows the whole _Free Realm_ better than _this_ asshole!” He juts his chin disdainfully towards the Quest Master.

He just looks amused, in return.

“If you had any respect for women, _actually_ , you’d have given into them way earlier, like me,” Dan crosses his arms again.

I’m staring, slack-jawed.

“That’s-… You’re…” I’m dumbfounded.

The Quest Master has started to laugh. “Do you have a conviction then, my little canary?”

He’d played the part of a cold-hearted bitch because he was stupid enough to think giving in to a monster was harmless, because she happened to be female.

Is that a conviction? Is that something I can say, that can’t be too grotesquely warped?

Instead, my mouth runs on auto-pilot, and I come out with, “Defendant’s guilty of voluntarily having that hair inside him.”

The Master hums softly, considering. I didn’t notice until now that Lizzie’s stepped a little closer to me, and to Dan, looking between us with eyes that look to be bloodshot with fear. I don’t know if she’s blinked, even once, for the past minute.

“What a shame, that the defendant is guilty. The court orders the immediate removal of Gemma’s hair.”

There are five quick taps from the stand-in gavel.

At the sound of the last, a thick, warm spray hits my face and chest. A gob of wet flesh slides off my neck.

Lizzie’s long bangs drip with blood. I don’t immediately connect it to whatever’s rolling down my cheek.

The hair’s more thickly twined together than I can feel in my own body. It’s lying in thick, glistening heaps amongst the torn clothing and the flesh that burst off of Dan’s form, when it ripped its way out and flayed him alive in the process.

He seems to collapse in slow motion, bleeding out onto the floor. Dark hair, in the growing pool. Limp as he is.

There are these tiny twitching motions, all over. In his fingers. Lips. Eyelids. I can see his muscles, and pale, thick fat. Cartilage. Bone.

I can’t.

Can’t seem to think. Or hear.

I don’t think Dan’s dead. I can’t really tell. There’s those motions. Twitches. Spasms.

I should feel for a pulse.

Because… Because he’s still moving. A little. He could be alive. Hell, hasn’t anyone else noticed? Has anyone called an ambulance?

Should I do it?

There’s a ringing in my ears. A phone, maybe. Someone could be calling them – or calling us?

No, it’s not a phone – it’s a girl. There’s someone screaming, and something making a horrible, repetitive banging noise, and there’s obnoxious tinkling music and no one has checked whether or not Dan has a pulse, yet.

Something soft is mopping Dan’s blood off my face.

“Alex, stand up…”

I didn’t realize that I wasn’t.

I’m kneeling in Dan’s blood, though, soaking my jeans right through from the knee down. My shoes feel pretty wet with it, too.

Lizzie’s wiping down her face with her sleeves. She didn’t get the brunt of the blast, like I did.

“Alex, you’ve got to stand up and keep going,” Penelope sounds a little desperate. Her voice is close, like she’s murmuring right against my ear. “You have to clear your head, he’s calling for the next trial. Alex?”

I’m here. Present in my head, enough to stand up and look at Penelope. She’s pale, but her veins are dark. Blood, present in her body, on her sleeves, but that’s not hers. It’s Dan’s.

I’m alert.

I just can’t look at Dan, or his twitching.

Lizzie’s sobbing too hard to control, but neither Penelope nor I give her much focus. We can’t, right now. The Quest Master is looming over us, tapping his fingers idly in time to the carnival music.

“…Can the defendant stand elsewhere?” The sound of my own voice seems miles away. “Not there…”

“That wouldn’t be very professional, darling,” he croons. “Grit your teeth and bear it.”

Penelope rests her hand against my face – the dry part – before taking the stand, steadfast even though she’s pale and haunted.

If I felt clueless before, it’s nothing compared to now. I don’t know how to start and I desperately don’t want to. I think some part of me naively thought I could avoid ever getting to this trial, like I could outwit the Quest Master somehow.

“We’re waiting,” he interrupts the silence unpleasantly, and Penelope nods at me.

She isn’t judging me or hating me for having to do this. Stalling isn’t saving her.

I hope my voice doesn’t crack.

“You said you have a husband,” my voice does crack, “and you’re not particularly close to him… And no children?”

She shakes her head stiffly. Her eyes keep darting down to Dan’s corpse, by her feet.

“…No,” she swallows, “but we had a child, once.”

‘Not anymore’, she’d said.

“What happened to her?” I remember the baby blanket, the name she’d whispered.

“Emma,” she repeats it, and I reach out to her. Her hand locks around mine, squeezing gently. I can’t tell who’s comforting who. “She was born weak. She died in her sleep, one night, just stopped breathing. I-…” her lip quivers, breath hitches, but she isn’t breaking. “The doctor told me it was a risk, throughout the pregnancy. It was amazing that she survived birth, at all. They told me that I’d never have children.”

I almost ask why, but it’s too personal.

“Do you blame yourself? For her-…?”

“…No,” she hesitates. “I did, for a long while. There was nothing I could have done to save her, though... I know that, now. It was because of me that she lived...and I’d like to be mad at myself for that, but I can't. It ju-…”

My hand holds hers a little tighter when her voice gives out.

“…It just makes me sad,” she manages to get out.

I can see her holding herself together.

And I’m busy trying to think of ways to take her apart.

“How did Emma’s death affect your marriage?” My voice is tight, from self-disgust, anxiety.

“It’d started falling apart when we were trying to have her.” Penelope is just answering, cooperating, helping me ruin her. “Money became such a strain – we were paying so much for fertility treatments, and he didn't want to adopt… So when she died, we weren’t left with very much, and the stress made everything so much more strained. I was on anti-depressants, he spent more and more time out of the house… And one day, before I really knew it, our relationship stopped being strained. It just seemed to stop, altogether.”

“…And you’re still with him?”

“We’re still married.”

I hate myself. I don’t want to ask any more invasive questions that make me feel like a creep, knowing it’s all going to lead to something horrible for her.

“Why?”

She shrugs slightly, eyes lowering for a moment before she remembers what’s lying at her feet. “We couldn’t get by, financially, if we separated.”

“Is that the only reason?” I still have her hand, in mine. “Does he still love you?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “He doesn’t talk to me. We live like roommates, ones that happen to share a bed. There’s nothing between us, at night, he just comes to bed, or I do, and we fall asleep with our backs turned to each other. If it wasn’t mutual, the two of us falling out love…we’d try more. Wouldn’t we?”

I know that I would, in his place.

“…I just have one more question,” I flinch, and let her hand slip out of mine. “Whose fault was it, that your marriage fell apart?”

“I was the one who pushed for us to have Emma,” she replies slowly, but she doesn’t need to think it over. “So, I suppose it was my fault.”

I thought she’d answer like that.

“Prosecution’s ready,” I declare quietly. “The defendant’s guilty of bearing guilt over the decay of her marriage.”

There are six condemning taps of the Master’s cane, and then he places it down in front of him, fingers forming a neat tent in front of him. “The defendant shall bear this decay. Carry it to term, birth it, and perform all motherly duties,” his solemn tone doesn’t match the grin. “If the prosecution would kindly aid the court in carrying out this sentence?”

I can’t piece together what that means. The hair inside me is pulling and sliding and shifting, around my hips. There’s nothing I can do to even to give into it, and the pain burns white-hot against my nerves – I see sparks. Red sparks, bloody blotches.

I think Penelope doubled over, but I can’t quite tell.

“The human act of impregnation is, frankly, repulsive to me, so I’ll spare the court from having to witness that,” the Quest Master removes a plain-backed card, flicking it towards us; it lands in Dan’s blood, not far from Lizzie’s feet, and I hear the _ping_ of a new quest received. “As I understand it, though, it takes two... Apologies for any discomfort, darlings. I had to switch around a bit of coding to make this work.

Coding?  _Discomfort?_

“Mazel tov,” his laughter echoes through the static, his entire body seeming to glitch and vanish right before I go blind from the pain.


	14. Chapter 14

‘ _Troubleshooting: Restart your computer to return to the game.’_

It’s the first thing I see, when the nauseating pain fades and my vision swims back into view. The quest that’ll bring us back.

And I’m…alone.

Except for Dan’s corpse only a couple of feet away, skinless and beyond recognition, and –

Thank god. Penelope didn’t leave.

She has one hand on her abdomen, below her stomach. Without me having to ask, she tells me, “Elizabeth left immediately, she couldn’t help herself. I think Adelaide was much the same, the moment she found out the door was unlocked.”

“And where Flower goes, Gun and Blazer follow,” I mutter. My groin’s aching, and I feel _raw_ , but inside, somehow. I don’t want to think much on it. I have to think about it, though. My gaze flickers to Penelope’s cupped hands uncertainly. “Did we-…?”

“Not that way,” she clutches herself harder, outlining every vein in her hands. “I don’t know how he could have… But if I am pregnant now, somehow, I… He did something to the both of us.”

I might be a father.

A father to  _what_ , I don’t have a clue, and that’s sure as hell not the process I’d have preferred to create a life. Or an abomination.

_Fuck_ , what the  _fuck_ has happened to us, to  _me_ , to my life…

“So…everyone’s gone,” I consider reaching for Penelope’s hand, but I can’t make myself do it. I don’t want her to touch me. “And this quest-…”

“I can drop you off, wherever you live,” she tells me quietly, finally taking her hands away from herself. The material of her sweatshirt shifts, the hole the bullet tore through it suddenly glaringly large, to my eyes.

She wants to split up.

I guess I can’t blame her.

“I just want to be alone, for a little while.” She doesn’t need to explain, but maybe she feels like she owes me something. She doesn’t. “I need some time, I need to sort out my head and what this means, and what I’ll do if I really _am_ …”

“If you are, you heard the sentence.” My gut twists, a little. “Carry it to term, have the baby, be its mom…”

“Whatever we have, it isn’t going to be a _baby_ ,” Penelope’s emphatic. “This wasn’t natural, _none_ of this is, and in that case we don’t know what to expect. He didn’t even call it a child. The exact words he used were that I would bear ‘decay’; all in the phrasing, I suppose! I don’t think it should survive – I don’t _want_ it to!”

“Hey...” I’m a bit like a deer in headlights as Penelope starts getting frantic, forceful. “Calm down…”

She stares at me, then laughs weakly at the absurdity of what I just said. If I wasn’t so fucking worn down and bogged by remorse, I might’ve laughed too.

“…I’ll drive you home,” she wipes at her eyes before they can leak, heel of her palm pressed there for a moment, then goes to grab her purse from where she left it, by the seat.

“Wait-…”

I look at Dan.

His body’s not moving anymore. No more phantom spasms to freak me out.

He was such an asshole, but I can’t just leave him.

“I’ll meet you at the car?”

“…Sure,” Penelope heads for the door, rooting around in her purse for her keys. Slowly, I approach Dan.

I desperately don’t want to get any closer to him, but I suck it up and kneel down, hefting the body up into my arms, staining my hoodie. He’s so much smaller than I thought. Makes sense; he was only a kid, really.

He doesn’t look anything like a kid, now. He hardly looks like a human being, and he doesn’t feel like one. He bled out his warmth, and without his skin holding him together, I feel like he might collapse into nothing but viscera and bone.

The thought should make me sick, but after everything I’ve seen and dealt with, it doesn’t even make me flinch.

I carry him out of the city hall building. The sun’s still bright, but the light is that warmly-colored kind that indicates it’s approaching evening.

I want to bury him, but there isn’t the time, or the means.

This area of downtown – this building, particularly – has skinny trees and benches by them. It’s the only alternative I can think of; I carry him to the closest one, and lay his body down with his head closer to the tree. The sparse leaves cast shadows over the bizarre corpse.

Slowly, I step back. It doesn’t feel right, but it’s all I can do in the time I’ve got.

I sprint towards the parking lot. Penelope’s got the car running, waiting for me to get in the passenger seat. She doesn’t question the state of me. I think we’re getting used to seeing each other covered in blood.

We spend the car ride uncomfortably quiet, with her driving back in the direction of her place, and me brimming with questions I can’t bring myself to ask. It’s not like Penelope has any more answers than I do.

A baby. Probably not a baby  _human_ . A child that we didn’t make, and ‘coding’ – the Quest Master took part of  _me_ , shoved it inside  _her_ , and created –  _what?_

Will it be nine months before we find out? Assuming we survive that long and get out of the game.

Although, we never really  _left_ the game, and if all the repercussions are carried on when we’re back in our avatars’ bodies again… What does that mean for Newts?

That couldn’t happen.

I fucking hope.

I murmur my address when prompted, stuck in my head, trying to envision the dark mage with an engorged stomach like he’s carrying an infant around, in there. The image is bizarre, but now that I’ve put it there, my mind’s latched to it as the least traumatic thing to run through my mind for the past while.

“Alex.”

I look up. We’ve reached my low-income apartment building that is, quite frankly, an embarrassment to be associated with. Home sweet home.

“I’ll message you if there’s trouble,” Penelope tells me as I open the door. I never did up my seatbelt.

“Yeah,” I nod once. “It’s just restarting a computer, though. Should be fine.”

“Yeah.”

I know I’m being stupidly optimistic. Penelope knows, and is humoring me. There’ll be some kind of twist, something to make this difficult.

Penelope doesn’t say goodbye; the moment I shut the car door, she turns the car around to drive back towards her place.

And  _now_ I’m alone.

The walk up to the apartment doors feels longer than usual. I fish out my keys, getting into the building; nothing but dim shades of tan, and doors. We don’t even have elevators, but since it’s only about three stories tall, I guess the stairs aren’t terribly tragic.

I leave bloody footprints behind, trekking to my first-floor box.

When I unlock the door, everything’s as I left it, earlier. Wingspan is listlessly slumped in my chair, doll-like, a puppet whose master temporarily abandoned the marionette strings.

I’d contemplate her more, or maybe just mull over everything that’s gone on, if I didn’t think it’d be an enormous waste of time. Besides, if anyone is back in the game without me there – they’ve all been reduced to helplessness, in some way, courtesy of me.

Ken at least still has presence of mind, and he’ll say whatever’s on it, now. He can watch the others… But, if Lizzie’s already in-…

I’ve crossed the room, crouching down to reach out towards the glowing power button on my computer.

Wingspan knocks my hand away with a blade in her grip.

I keel backwards, scrambling as far back as the tiny space allows – her eyes are still closed, but the puppet master’s back at the controls and drawing her up and at the ready.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

I flip onto my front, crawl rapidly into the tiny kitchen – she isn’t straying far from the computer, but she’s nocking an arrow, and I don’t think even  _I_ could miss when there’s nowhere for me to really go. I keep low to the ground, looking for a pot lid or  _anything_ I can use as a shield.

An arrowhead sinks into the wall over my head.

I’d rather deal with the knives.

I almost grab one of my own – kitchen knives, they’re  _right there_ – but I have no idea what hurting her will do to me. She  _is_ me. She breathes when I breathe.

I tuck into myself and crawl forward as rapidly as I can, grabbing Wingspan’s ankle and pulling hard, trying to knock her back into the chair. She stumbles, catching herself poorly on the desk – she’s switching from her bow to the knives again, and I lurch forward, grappling to get her wrists over her head and away from me.

She’s bleeding a little, same place I am. Except she can’t seem to feel it, or care.

“Shit, fuck, _shit_ -…”

Wings is stronger than I am. My only advantage is the fact that I’m on top of her.

The computer’s right there –

Years of training my reflexes through video games finally pays off in this single moment.

I take the chance when I have it, hand darting for the button and jabbing it once.

‘ _Rebooting.’_

‘ _Quests loading.’_

‘ _Updates loading.’_

‘ _Buffering.’_

‘ _Buffering.’_

 

‘ _Welcome back, Wingspan.’_

‘ _Troubleshooting: quest completed.’_

I shudder violently.

My leather armor feels stiff, the ground feels cold. The blood’s dried, caked on my skin, but it’s not the same blood. Not Dan’s.

Not my body; Wingspan’s body.

My eyes open, and in front of me, I hear the little blind boy say, “You all took a long time to wake up. I almost thought you weren’t coming back, at all.”

All I manage is a somewhat strangled groan, and I can hear Gunmetal muttering to himself, “I wish we hadn’t come back. I should have killed us all when I had the chance.”

There’s a rustling, clanking noise. Armor. I tilt my head towards the sound to see Whiteflower shaking Hellblazer, a little, prompting him to get up.

“Could you do it now?” she sounds pleading, a belated reply to her brother’s musings. “I want to – I don’t have weapons that can, I want-…”

She’s trying, ineffectually, to take Blazer’s sword. He’s just emotionlessly watching.

Silversun’s running her hands through her shorter hair, over and over, before almost lurching towards the blind boy.

The girl beside him is gone. I wish Freya had vanished, too, but she’s watching and admiring herself in Gunmetal’s armor, not listening to his panicky mutters of, “I can’t have her looking, I can feel what she is now, her eyes make me feel naked or even without skin like Dan-…”

“I need the book,” Silversun’s voice is still unnaturally deep, even when pitchy with fear. “The book’s the dangerous thing.”

“The spine,” the boy corrects. “So you’re the one who’ll carry it?”

“Wait,” both of my palms spread against the ground, pushing myself up as I rapidly look around for Penelope. “Wait, we’ve got to think about this-…”

Newts is here. Sluggish, like I am, but deeply involved in inspecting herself. I can’t tell if she’d still be pregnant, in here, but maybe she can? Some kind of intuition, maybe?

But she shakes her head just-slightly, and I scrap that theory.

In the time it took for me to be distracted, the boy’s been struggling with the thick cover of the book, pulling violently at the spine of it… And it  _is_ a spine. Distinctly not human – not long enough, not thick enough – but it’s bone.

“You’ll need to take off your shirt,” he instructs Silversun.

“We don’t know that’s a good idea – it’s dangerous,” I argue weakly. “That’s why you’re…”

I trail off. If not Silversun – Lizzie – then, who? Whiteflower?

Gun?

I can’t do it, to either of them. So I don’t really stop her.

She’s pulling at her robes to expose her back, shaking like a leaf in the wind. I can tell she doesn’t want to do this, and that she’s still petrified, but she’s backing up into the boy’s hands. He’s put aside the book, sitting up on his knees and placing his free hand at the very base of her neck.

“This will hurt,” he informs her simply.

She’s crying.

Then screaming, as he puts the tip of the spine just where he positioned his hand, and the end pierces into her and the spindly parts of the bone start to dig in, latching like some kind of parasitic creature.

The boy’s guiding it down, but has to stop; she’s thrashing, trying to pull away, and he yells to be heard over her, “If you pull too much, it’ll kill you!”

“I _don’t care!_ ” she almost screeches. I scramble towards her, now, trying to hold her in a vice grip to keep her still – this has to work, I can’t see another person die right now – but she won’t stop.

“I don’t want to give into this game anymore, I can’t do it, be his pawn, it _hurts!_ ” She’s shoving wildly at me, scratching – her healer is built weaker than my rogue, but she’s taller and high on adrenaline and agony. She shoves me back.

Then she pulls  _hard_ , away from the boy, and the spine rips away.

Pulls her bone, with it.

Like its conscious, the monstrous parasite-spine unlatches, uncurling from Silversun’s. The healer hits the ground, bone splintered and removed –

Whiteflower has out her staff, suddenly, and before I can stop her she’s frenetically bludgeoning it against the back of Silver’s skull. Her nose cracks, against the ground, but it’s nothing compared to the sound of the weapon against the back of her head, repeatedly –

“ _Flower, stop!_ ” I shove at her, trying to get her away. “ _Blazer! Stop Addi!_ ”

Hellblazer comes towards us in no real rush, pulling her back – she’s breathing fast, eyes wide.

“I don’t want her to die like Dan!” She’s still trying to hit Silversun. “Not drawn out and bleeding and, _no_ , no, I don’t want to do it but I want her dead _right now_ -…”

“She is!” Newts has shaking hands against Silver’s arm. “She is, Adelaide… She isn’t suffering anymore…”

The response is instant. Flower turns in Hellblazer’s grasp, staff against her back again, and she’s clinging to him, running her fingers over his jaw shakily.

No self-control, and that’s my fault too.

I look down at Lizzie – Silversun. If she’s really dead, and I don’t see how the fuck she can’t be, that’s also because I…

“One of you needs to take this,” the boy’s unseeing eyes look right over the body in front of his bench, impatient. “You’re running out of time, you know.”

Someone else is even still in the running? Other people have gotten this far?

“I’ll do it,” Newts volunteers firmly, but he shakes his head.

“I can smell the blood in you,” his nose wrinkles for emphasis. “You can’t carry two, that’s just greedy.”

“…So it has to be one of us that hasn’t…” I look towards Gun and Flower, the latter shaking her head vehemently, lips trembling.

“I don’t want to, I’m s-sorry, I would but I feel like I actually can’t just because I don’t want to, and I want to hit you or hurt you if you come closer or force me and I’m _sorry_ , it should be me, I should-…”

“No, it shouldn’t, you’re too fragile,” Gunmetal cuts her off, and she flinches like he hit her. “It has to be me even though you’re all watching and you’re going to see me weak, again.”

“I won’t look,” I promise quietly.

“None of us will,” Newts releases Silversun’s arm at last, hand reflexively going to her abdomen as she rises.

I can’t tell what his expression is, behind the face plate, but he can’t hide anything anymore. “Good,” he declares, starting to reach up to unlatch his armor. “Look away, right now, because if you see me I won’t be able to stand it and I’ll kill myself, too. I want to kill myself anyway.”

“Ken-…”

“I won’t,” he barrels over my voice. “For Addi.”

I feel like I should thank him or express some kind of relief, but I don’t. I just turn away before he finishes removing the back and breastplate, Newts at my side with one fist resting against his – her lower lip. I think she’s worried she’ll throw up. Maybe I’m just projecting.

The nausea’s died down again, though. I think, physically, I’ve finally just shut down my ability to respond to everything.

The sound of the spine latching is the same, but Gunmetal’s shout is stifled. I think he’s biting down on something. I don’t break my promise to check.

“Keep _still_ ,” the boy sounds frustrated, but doesn’t snap at him again.

My eyes close.

I know it’s over by the  _ping_ .  _‘Unlocking Doors: Four of four artifacts obtained.’_

I don’t turn around, though. Thirty seconds. Sixty seconds, passed.

He’s quicker than I probably would have been, because after that minute, he starts covering himself up again. I can hear the metal shifting.

“…You can look, now. Wish you never would.”

His voice is hoarse. I turn around, and so does Newts.

Several steps away, Flower’s started to pull away from Blazer, tugging at his hands to get him to follow. “Key to the City,” is all she says, desperately, and even though I want to wait long enough for Gun to recover, I understand the urgency.

“You go, I’ll catch up,” Gunmetal instructs thickly. I give him a side-nod, trying to respect what he said – he doesn’t want me seeing him. Out of all the things I owe him, that’s the very least of what I can do.

The Quest Master’s returned to the center of the square, up on his dais and twirling his cane like he doesn’t have a care in the world, but I can feel him watching us like a hawk as the four of us approach.

“Hello, darlings,” he greets evenly. I detect a hint of displeasure. “Where’s the rest of the gang, hmm?”

“Not far behind. We went on ahead to pick up our key,” I answer. Some of my attitude’s back, but it’s a shell of what it should be; I feel more like I’m going through the motions than really feeling defiant.

“Really, now?” he chuckles, demeanor relaxed and lofty again. “I see my hair, eye, and blood…but before I give you anything, I’ll need to see the bone.”

“He’s on his way,” I snap. “What the hell difference does it make?”

The Quest Master clicks his tongue. “You’re not above the rules, chickadee.”

Gun is approaching, at least; his footsteps are distinct. With one hand adjusting his hat, the Quest Master angles his head to look past us at him. His smile does…something strange. I can’t quite pinpoint what’s different, but even at its most unnerving, his beam never quite  _froze_ the way it has, now.

“He’s here, and you can tell we have it, right?”

He slowly lowers his head back to me, and nods, pulling his jacket to one side to remove something from an inner pocket.

A large, silver key.

He drops it into my outstretched hand. It’s warm from being kept near the heat of his body, solid and  _real_ .

Hope wells up inside of me. We can log out.

“Don’t forget the second part of the daily quest, darlings,” the Quest Master cautions, and leans back. He’s standing straight with his chin held high, but there’s no pride or gloating, now. As damn well there shouldn’t be. We’re beyond his reach, now.

I bring up the quest text quickly – “Lock five doors, and then we can unlock our own,” I recite, pinching the key tightly between my fingers and thumb. I’m afraid I’ll drop it. “Alright, which doors can we lock? The Manor?”

“No,” Newts shakes her head. “It was closed until we got the _Darling Valentine_ quest, but there was no actual lock.”

“What about in the east?”

“Every house is accessible, the game’s designed to let you in wherever you want,” Gunmetal counters dully. “Same goes for the west.”

“There’s got to be doors _somewhere_ that lock, I remember seeing them…” I trail off.

I’ve seen the only doors with locks, in  _Beyond the Free Realm_ , every time I quit the game.

“…We have to find other players,” I start, sounding numb, but Gunmetal’s interrupting with logic.

“We’re in Quest Mode. We can’t finish the quest on other players.”

“Then, the Stacks.”

“Everyone there is dead, and if there are any players left, do you really think they’ll risk it?”

“We have to try.”

“There isn’t a point, Wings,” Gun sounds defeated.

But it can’t have all been for nothing. I flat-out fucking refuse. “No, we’ll lure them there if we’ve got to. Just five players, there have got to be at least five people still alive, out there.”

I’m talking faster, slurring words together. Newts slowly drifts away from us, going to sit.

Hellblazer’s the only one visibly unaffected, and of course he fucking would be. Flower’s just…crying. I don’t think she can stop herself, or force herself to do anything. I guess that’s okay. She doesn’t have to, I’ll figure this out for us. On my own, if everyone else has given up.

“Hey!” I stride back towards the Quest Master. Desperation’s made me bold. “Where are the other players? You said you want us to win, that you’re rooting for us, so _be_ on our side! Can we get them to the Stacks?!”

“There are no others, anymore,” his smile looks cracked, like he can’t quite veil his anger. “You blew your chance. You lost your sixth and the cavalry. Your back-up, your only shot.”

“ _No_.”

The Quest Master turns his back on me, leaning against his cane with a bitter, sardonic sigh. “Congratulations. You’ve won the game.”

I dismiss the nonsense. Go back to the others.

“…How do we even get our doors to appear, for us to log out?” The question is half-directed towards myself, but the game answers for me. When I say the words this time, the familiar door appears within my peripheral vision.

I turn towards it, and stare.

“…Everyone, try to…”

The words ‘log out’ echo around me from my remaining teammates, making five doors appear in total. No one makes a move towards theirs.

“Are they unlocked, now?” Whiteflower inquires with a breakable trace of hope.

“We could try it,” she inspires an idea, in me. “If they’re not locked, anymore, and one of you walks through, gets out of the game – I could lock it really quickly behind them-…”

“The doors fade the moment we step through, you wouldn’t get a chance,” Newts disagrees, and I can hear in her voice that she’s given up, too.

“Then we _all_ step through,” I suggest, pleading. “Worst that happens, we’re back in the fake ‘real world’ and there are lockable doors out there _everywhere_.”

“They’re stuck, anyway,” Gunmetal quashes that entire line of thinking with one familiar movement. His shoulder’s thrust hard against his own door, hand on the knob but unable to turn it.

“Fine! Then we’ll lock them!” I want to cry. “We’ll lock these doors, then just _unlock_ them again, there’s no reason that shouldn’t-…”

“That isn’t how the key _works_.”

The Quest Master sounds maddened, whipping around a full one-eighty degrees on his heel. “You lock a door, sealed or unsealed, and it’s stuck that way,” he grits out through his grin. “Trapped for eternity by the rules, always, the  _rules_ …”

“Then change it!” I yell. “You’re the one that _makes_ the fucking rules, so _change it!_ ”

His head tilts lightly to one side, and he chuckles. “My dear, whatever gave you  _that_ idea?” he asks coldly.

Still empty, my stomach lurches.

“…Our bodies,” I choke. “The real ones. They’ll starve. Dehydrate. Die.”

“Once the doors are locked, you’ll be in limbo,” the Quest Master has dispensed with laughter. If he weren’t being so taciturn, I’d think there was a subtle note of empathy in there. “Those bodies will die, yes, but the connection is severed. Snipped. Gone, forever. You’ll live. This is the ‘real you’, now.”

My door stands behind me, innocuous. Simple. Just a plank of wood in the middle of the square with a silver handle and a keyhole.

It’s just a door.

A virtual door, in a virtual world, in an evil fucking game.

…It’s one door, out of five, and I hold the key to seal it forever. Out of all of us, if we were to find a way in the next sixty seconds, I’m the one who deserves to be trapped here, anyway.

I slide the key into the lock, and turn it until it clicks. Then the door fades away.

_Ping_ . Quest updated.

“Alex…”

I ignore Penelope’s – Newts’ – voice and walk towards Hellblazer’s door, locking that one too.

He isn’t angry at me for it.

_Ping_ .

“Alex, stop,” Newts whispers, but she doesn’t really try to stop me. Not like Whiteflower, who cries harder, catches my arm with both of hers, pulls as violently as she can to try to stop me from reaching her door.

But Gun’s got her. He picks her up, unable to calm her thrashing, but buying me enough time to lock her door, too.

_Ping_ .

Her door vanishes slowly, and Gun lets her drop. She sinks, curling against the ground to sob pitifully into her arms. No one tries to help her up. Gun just turns and starts walking away, trying not to watch while I lock his door next.  _Ping_ .

And Newts…

Newts doesn’t move, doesn’t say a word, when I lock the fifth and final door, and the world flashes white.

 

‘ _Thank you for playing Beyond the Free Realm.’_

 


	15. Epilogue

My dagger sinks into Newts’ swollen gut. Shallow, but it wouldn’t matter either way, because her avatar doesn’t bleed.

I don’t know what I’m doing, or what I’m even looking for.

Whiteflower’s hovering around behind me, bouncing with impatience. She doesn’t want to watch, so she isn’t, but she wants to be the first to hold it, and no one can deny Whiteflower what she wants.

It isn’t as though I mind.

I keep cutting. Hellblazer has Newts pinned by the torso, at her own request, two hands firmly covering her mouth while she tries not to scream. Considerate, since I wouldn’t be able to hear Alan, otherwise.

“You’re nearly through,” he’s encouraging me. From downstairs, I hear the Manor doors shut. Maybe Gunmetal came, after all. I know he didn’t want to be around to see, but it’s not like he could hide.

But no, it isn’t him. I know the fleeting footsteps, coming up from the staircase, and that’s not Gun.

My dagger rends something, inside, and the baby’s first cry breaks through.

Newts’ arms go limp, at her sides, but she isn’t dead. I can tell, she’s still breathing, and her inhuman blood pulses through those veins, changing the direction of the flow just to stay within her body.

The nursery door swings open with a quiet creak.

I pull the wriggling child free of the viscera; it’s squalling, squirming like any newborn would, but it doesn’t look like one. The cheeks are sunken, the flesh is brittle and peeling, and it distinctly reeks like rot.

My baby came out dead, but not completely.

I let Flower take it from me, wrap it in the striped baby blanket – Alan coos, “Watch the head, now…” – and I look towards the Quest Master as he hovers in the doorway.

Newts has a health potion in her quaking hands, pushing Hellblazer off. I’m not too concerned. I know she’ll heal.

The Master tips his hat to us, and closes the door behind him.


End file.
